The Mutation
by chattypandagurl
Summary: [COMPLETE]The XMen and the four teenagers have landed in Orlando, Florida for one reason: to find and destroy The Machine. This machine can be used to control mutants. Magneto wants it, which isn't good. Now that they've been captured, can they escape?
1. New Life

Disclaimer: I do not own anything but Aqua (aka Ling) she's mine, so don't take her! Grr. ;)  
  
This happens a little bit after the second movie. (WARNING: X2 spoilers!) Please R&R!  
  
Logan had a sudden urge to go out.so here he was. He was standing outside a supermarket, letting the cool breeze whip through his hair. He had thought about her a lot, Jean. Logan's mind drifted back to that day.why had he told Scott, "She chose you"? And why, WHY did Jean have to die? Plus, One- eye's been in total depression ever since anyway.  
  
Just then, his acute sense of smell picked up something that interrupted his thoughts. It was a strange smell. Logan knew he really shouldn't, but his curiosity got the best of him.  
  
Logan jogged over to the woods. "The smell was coming from here." he murmured to himself. He walked deeper into the woods. He was getting a bad feeling about this.  
  
Just then, a dark figure appeared in front of him. It was a girl dressed in what looked like a ripped black leather uniform, much like their X men uniforms, Logan couldn't help thinking. She was panting hard, her black hair hiding her face. When she finally looked up to the surprisingly patient Logan, he noted that her brown, Asian-like eyes were filled with pain.  
  
She smiled weakly and said, "Hello Wolverine."  
  
Logan stepped back in surprise. "Have we met?" He wondered. But then, he wouldn't be surprised if he knew her. There are still many holes in his past.  
  
She looked up at him coolly. "No, I've never met you. But my former, um, master has mentioned you a lot. And after all, I did witness you murdering my best friend."  
  
A cold chill went up his spine. He had? But this girl was a child. How-?  
  
"Can't figure it out? I'll give you a hint. One: Some people think we look like twins. The only thing wrong with that is that she's older than I. Two: You've seen her very, very recently."  
  
An image clicked in his head of a beautiful Japanese girl who had died a horrific death of having too much of what made her indestructible in her system. He had heard the sickening clunk of her body as it sank to the bottom of the water tank. It had made him sad to be the one to kill her, since she had been so much like him.  
  
"You're her best friend?" Logan asked, suddenly getting suspicious. Was she going to try and avenge her friend's death? All of a sudden this girl didn't look too innocent to Logan. His steel claws came out immediately.  
  
The girl shook her head. "No, I'm not going to avenge Deathstrike. In fact, if anything, I'd be thanking you."  
  
"Thanking me?" Logan asked confused. Is she trying to mess with his mind? Confuse him? Well, it sure is working.  
  
"Yes. You put her out of her misery. It's really too bad she didn't make it out while still living. . .but at least she'll see her family again. I was lucky, if you call my current state luck. You see," She looked straight into Logan's eyes, "we were slaves. Slaves to the mutant hater, William Stryker. We had no free will of our own, and every time that serum would fade, he'd immediately put more into our systems. I knew I could find you, because I saw your face during the fight. I came to you because. . .I need a favor."  
  
When Logan heard the name William Stryker, a burning anger rose in his heart. He felt a soft spot for this stranger. First of all, she was no older than Rouge, second of all, she was a victim of cruel circumstances, and lastly, Logan felt that he owed her, since he was the slayer of possibly her only friend and comfort.  
  
"What do you want, kid?" He asked instantly.  
  
"I was wondering if you could take me to Xavier's school for mutants."  
  
* * * "Let's start with the basics. My name is Professor Xavier. What's your name?"  
  
"Can't you just read my mind?"  
  
"Yes, but I prefer to hear it from your own point of view using your voice."  
  
"Ok, my name is Ling Wong, and I used to 'work' for Stryker, until you killed him. After I saw Wolverine kill Deathstrike, I knew he must be one of the good guys trying to save you, Professor. And my serum wore off shortly after the fight. Since Stryker was in such a panic to leave, he forgot to give me more. But then I felt that the dam was starting to break. So I stood on top of it and held it back to give you guys a little more time. I saw the damned devil himself try and make a run for it, but since I was preoccupied holding up the dam, it was too bad I couldn't kill him myself. To make him pay. Finally, I couldn't hold up much longer, so I had to let go. I just hoped it gave you enough time to go. And I guess it did, since you're all obviously alive and well."  
  
Scott Summers aka Cyclops had walked in right before the last sentence. His face screwed into a tight scowl and her phrasing that they were all alive and well. More of the opposite, really.  
  
"What are your powers?" Cyclops asked.  
  
"I can control and manipulate water." Ling replied, "People called my Aqua. Lame, I know, but I'm used to it."  
  
"But how did you get associated with Stryker anyhow?" He questioned further. (What is this, a police interrogation?)  
  
"I actually live in China, but I'm an amateur linguist, so I can speak several other languages, including English, very fluently. When I was about 13, I got to go on a Foreign Exchange Student program to Japan. There, my host family was Deathstrike's family. Originally, my best friend there was Deathstrike's little sister, Kari. Deathstrike was just the annoying older sister. But one day, I went shopping with Deathstrike. I didn't know I was a mutant at the time, but I think she knew. Anyway, Striker was about to get hit by a car, so we played the Good Samaritan. Deathstrike dove to save him, having to let her fingernails out to stop herself, with Stryker clinging to her, off the cliff. She had saved his life.  
  
"But when Stryker realized that she was a mutant, he had his marines capture us on the spot. He ordered them to kill me. He didn't want any witnesses. But when the marines tried to put me there, I was under a lot of stress and fear. So I liquefied myself and slipped out of his grasp. But because it was my first time, I reformed immediately and shot out cold water from my fingers and stung the marine in the eye. From then on Stryker looked at me differently. He told me that he'd be 'merciful' and spare my life. Then he gave us the serum. It was one of the early serums, we were one of his first experiments. He altered them later, but he still had to keep making that one because our bodies would reject any other version of the serum.  
  
"He was going to experiment it-to make sure that the serum worked. So he sent Deathstrike and me to Kari's house. He had us murder Deathstrike's own parents. Her mother, who was always making me laugh, was in the kitchen, humming a tune. She turned around, and Deathstrike skewered her. She saw who the stabber was. Her own daughter. I flooded her dad's car as he pulled in. His windows were closed. Finally, it was Kari's turn. I couldn't control myself. I tried to stop the killing, but we were both helpless. When Kari came in we were both hiding behind the door. Once she came in, I stopped her moving from behind, and Deathstrike stuck her fingernails into her chest. Kari's eyes were pained, and she looked confused and hurt. She recognized her own sister, and the girl she had been instantly best friends with. I think she died with both physical and inner pain. It was terrible to watch. And it was even more horrible to do.  
  
"For three years we slaved under him, killing and manipulating various people. We also 'recruited' people, or kidnapping them and forcing the serum on them. Deathstrike and I were only ourselves when we were waiting in a cold, damp prison cell for the serum to brew. We were the only comforts to each other. After I became free, I tried to go home. But they weren't there. I asked the neighbor, who no longer recognized me, where they had went, and he answered that he wasn't sure. They had disappeared soon after the death of their daughter, too overcome with grief to even live in the same house with her ghost everywhere. I had heard Stryker say something about a school for mutants, where they could find shelter. And, fast forward, I'm here."  
  
Aqua's long, sad story was met with silence. Professor Xavier's head was bowed with reverence. Ling's heart wept for her loss, and the guilt she had to bear, even if it wasn't of her own doing or her fault. She almost began to envy Deathstrike's death. At least the guilt wouldn't follow her. She blocked out all sounds, her mind suddenly taken up with various memories of her life. It seemed as if someone was controlling her memories, forcing her to relive each and every one. Aqua almost didn't hear the Professor say,  
  
"You're in."  
  
"I'm what? That easily?" Ling wondered, shocked.  
  
"We never turn down any mutant in need. And by looking through your memories, I can see that your story is true. Let's see. Your new roommate will be Rogue. Hold on, I've just called her in."  
  
A brownish-reddish haired girl with black leather gloves on came in. Ling noticed that she had two white streaks in her hair.  
  
"You called, Professor?" She said with a Southern accent.  
  
"Yes, this is your new roommate, Rogue. Her name is Ling, or would you prefer to be called Aqua?" Xavier inquired.  
  
"Both are fine, I really don't care." Ling answered.  
  
"Please show her around, and maybe introduce her to your friends, Rogue."  
  
"All right. C'mon." Rogue said, waving to Ling.  
  
Ling slowly got out of the seat. She was about to close the door when she remembered her manners.  
  
"Thank you so much, Professor Xavier." Ling said with true gratefulness.  
  
"You're very welcome, Ling." Xavier answered with a knowing smile.  
  
"So, what are your powers?" Rouge asked.  
  
"I can control water." Ling answered, "What about you?"  
  
Rogue looked down at her gloves. "You're lucky to have such a tame power. Mine is that if I touch you, I take away your life force. Or if you're a mutant, I take your powers for a short time. That's why I wear gloves."  
  
"Oh. I'm sorry." Ling didn't know what else to say.  
  
"Well, the professor's going to try and help me control my powers, so I can kis-" Suddenly she blushed, realizing that she'd almost said a little too much.  
  
Ling smiled a true smile for the first time in a long while. This is going to be great. Too bad for Ling, it wouldn't last that way for long. 


	2. Nightmares and Bloody Thoughts

Hi again! This is chapter 2, much shorter than the first, so please R& R!  
  
Much to her surprise, Ling fitted in perfectly. Bobby particularly liked her, since his power was so much like hers. She and Rogue became really close friends, and she was starting to rediscover happiness again. Unfortunally, no matter how her daytime activities were, her dreams still haunted her.  
  
She was hearing shrieks. She saw Kari screaming, being killed by her own sister. She was holding her still, making sure she didn't break for it. But all of a sudden, when Deathstrike's claws lashed forward, Aqua was Kari. Blood was around her, her head swirled with confusion and pain. Why were they doing this? She thought. Then, with a last desperate look at her older sister, she collapsed to the floor and never breathed again.  
  
Ling awoke with a start, cold sweat pouring down her forehead. For a moment, she put her hands around her neck. She couldn't breathe. She gasped a couple of times until finally some air got through. Ling cried quietly in the darkness. She didn't wish to disturb Rogue, who was gently sleeping beside her, apparently nightmare less. Ling suddenly felt thirsty and had an urge to walk around. She had a bad feeling, and for some reason needed to get away from Rogue. As she quietly crept open the door, Rogue woke up.  
  
"What are you doing?" Rogue asked.  
  
"I couldn't sleep. I'm going for a walk. Just go back to sleep." Ling answered, her voice sounding distant.  
  
Ling walked along the corridor, all too aware of the eerie silence. All of a sudden, a spasm of pain went through her head.  
  
"Ahhhh!" Ling screamed. The pain was so intense! Ling clutched her head, and slammed into a wall. She slipped down the wall onto the floor in a sitting position. No no no no! Her head screamed. Images of blood, flashes of metal, water, drowning, images of a red haired woman being washed away amidst the snow and dam pieces. She was clutching onto one of the pieces. More blood, serum, sharp, needle-like pain coming from the back of her neck. Suddenly, she stopped shaking.  
  
Ling got up from the floor calmly, her eyes now bloodshot red, and her lips twisted in an evil smile. She was going to do it.  
  
"No, no! I can't do this!" Ling screamed inside herself. But she knew the truth. She couldn't do anything about it.  
  
Ling began to walk up the stairs, about to commit the biggest murder ever.  
  
She was going to drown the entire school. And all the filthy, resident mutants within it.  
  
To Be Continued.  
  
Please R&R and watch out for the next chapter! 


	3. Mutation Mystery

Here's Chapter Three! Please R&R!  
  
Aqua kept on feeling sharp, intense pain on the back of her neck. She began to suspect something. Why? Why now, when she had finally found somewhere she belongs? Where she is happy? Where there is freedom?  
  
Aqua liquefied herself and somehow slipped to the very highest floor. She obviously didn't want to drown with them, even if she could save herself. She could liquefy herself; but having the water flow go down is easier.  
  
It felt so strange, even if she was used to it. One part of her mind is thinking and planning out the murder strategy. But the other part is crying for help, and praying to God that it won't work.  
  
But it always works. None of her plans have ever failed, which made Ling very unhopeful.  
  
Once the plan worked, everyone: Rogue, Bobby, the Professer, Wolverine, the boyfriend of that red haired girl-everyone. Somehow she had to stop, well, herself. Somehow.  
  
Ling was too busy thinking about it, so she hadn't noticed that water was already spilling from her fingers and palms. She felt her mouth stretched into a cruel smile, and she felt the clear, pure water tickling her feet. But the water would no longer be pure soon.  
  
* * *  
  
Rogue awoke to the sound of scratching and pounding at her door. She mumbled, "No, not yet. Five more minutes," while yawning and stretching her arms.  
  
"Rogue, open the door! It's me!" A familiar voice said urgently.  
  
"Bobby?" Rogue asked while opening the door, "What are you doing here?"  
  
"My entire floor's being flooded! I froze the water just in time to allow a little path big enough for everyone to escape! Someone's trying to-" Bobby looked at the unoccupied bed beside Rogue's, "Wait. Where's Ling?"  
  
"Uh," Rogue thought about it for a moment, "Oh yeah, she needed to take a walk. I think she was having nightmares. You know. About her past and all?"  
  
But Bobby didn't see it that way. He liked Ling and all-but this was too coincidental. And she used to work for Stryker. Unwillingly, sure, but maybe some of that violence had stuck to her.  
  
"Rogue?" Bobby asked slowly, "Isn't Ling's power water?"  
  
Rogue put her now-gloved hands to her mouth. "Crud, you don't think it's her, do you?"  
  
Bobby nodded his head. "Yeah, and I think we should warn the others and the Professor. You go get everyone else. I'll get Logan. I personally know that he's still poking around the kitchen trying to find some beer."  
  
* * *  
  
Aqua's floor was only a little flooded, so she can still keep this up for a while. She had "eyes" in the water, so she saw Bobby Drake freeze up the water on his floor (which was the floor below the one she's on now) and allowed them to escape.  
  
Aqua snarled a curse that would make G movies run in terror.  
  
Ling couldn't believe this. "She" was cursing her friend for saving all the other students! God, Ling didn't know how she had put up with this for 3 stupid years! And she can't do anything! She felt so useless.  
  
* * *  
  
Bobby ran as fast as he could through the slippery water to the kitchen. And as he thought, he saw Logan still rifling through the various pop bottles. He was totally oblivious to the fact that water up to his ankles flooded the room.  
  
"God, I would think that a place with an underground facility, training arena, mutant kids, a team of superheroes, and a jet would at least have some decent beer!!!" Bobby heard Logan complaining to himself. Bobby rolled his eyes.  
  
"Logan!"  
  
Logan turned around grumpily. "What? Wait-what the heck is all this water for?"  
  
"Logan, I think Ling's flooding the place! Rogue's going around warning everyone to get out of the mansion!  
  
"Ok, I'm sure there must be something up. Do you know where she is?" Logan questioned.  
  
"I think she's in the floor above mine, since the water was coming from the stairs." Bobby answered.  
  
"Iceman, you go find Rogue and the others, and get them to safety! I'll take care of the girl."  
  
Bobby nodded his head and left.  
  
Logan sighed sadly. "Kid, what have you done?"  
  
* * *  
  
Aqua had seen a lot of people leaving, but she knew that Rogue and Bobby would never get all of them out. At least she'd take down some of them. Her back was turned, so she didn't see the man with a surgically implanted, indestructible skeleton walk in behind her.  
  
* * *  
  
Logan decided on knocking her out, but not too bad. He thought maybe he'd just tap her, but what good would that do? So he punched her lightly on the head.  
  
"Ah!" Ling cried painfully. She collapsed to the floor and was out cold. Logan went over and felt her pulse. Hmm. He thought. Maybe I really should have stuck with the tap.  
  
But then he noticed something under her long black hair. He lifted it gently, and just saw something very strange.  
  
In the place where the serum was implanted in was a big, bubbly mass of green glob. It was disgusting to watch, but Logan kept his eyes planted to the very spot. He watched as the glob, the mutation, sank back in. The circle was still there, and the mutation-the infection-was no where to be seen. But it would be back soon. That he knew. 


	4. Captured!

I haven't got as many reviews as I liked, please R&R! Flames are fine too. I want to know if I can make it better.  
  
* * *  
  
Ling woke up in a hospital bed feeling really exhausted. She could barely remember the night before. But then it all came flooding back.  
  
"Oh, great." She muttered. Now she was in for it. And it wasn't really even her doing it either.  
  
She imagined her life turning back to pain and loneliness again. The people at this school were kind, but they would never let her stay here anymore.  
  
Ling decided that she would run away, and get the heck out of there before she could do anything else bad.  
  
* * *  
  
"It seems that this, um, mutation is caused by that serum that Stryker injected into her. She was used to it for a long time, so when she stopped receiving it, it must have worked up somehow. But what triggered it? God, I wish Jean was here. She'd know what to do."  
  
"Keep this quiet. I don't want a scene and a mass of frightened students mobbing us with questions. I truly believe that Ling did not intentionally mean to do this." Professor Xavier said.  
  
"How do you know that?" Cyclops demanded. He was a little uppity since Jean was mentioned.  
  
"I saw the security tape, and also heard Rogue's account. I-"  
  
"Professor! Aqua's left the building!"  
  
* * *  
  
Ling had stuffed a bunch of cloths and some food into a small bag. Now she was running into the woods.  
  
She heard a voice in her head saying, "You always run away from your problems! Stop it!"  
  
But this was a big problem, and she couldn't bear hearing the Professor tell her that she had to leave. Or maybe something worse than that. This was her only option.  
  
All of a sudden, she heard a helicopter in the distance.  
  
"I'd better get under cover." She muttered to herself. Despite the friendly air and the kindness she had come in contact with at the Xavier Institute, she was a survivor, and didn't really know how to be a normal teenager anymore. Ling had lost that a long time ago.  
  
Ling hid in the bushes and saw the helicopter land a few miles away from her. They were too close. She'd have to hang in the bush for a while until they leave.  
  
They didn't leave.  
  
It was probably about 5 hours of squatting behind a bush before Ling had gotten tired. Her training with Stryker was much worse. Finally, she fell to exhaustion. Her head flopped to one side as she took a nap while squatting. Needless to say, it was very uncomfortable.  
  
Suddenly, she felt two strong hands grab her from behind.  
  
"Get away!" She shrieked and karate chopped the hand. Then she grabbed her attacker and flipped her/him. But from the ground a scaly blue foot came up and slapped her face. She was shocked. Ling had not expected such a flexible attack from the ground! Then the blue figure flipped upwards and grabbed Ling's wrists.  
  
"Nice grip," the blue lady said, "let me show you mine." Then she twisted Ling's wrists, causing her to cry out in pain. Ling found the energy to kick the blue attacker's stomach, and scrambled away. The attacker obviously was a mutant. So why attack her?  
  
"Maybe she's a human hater and thinks I'm one," Ling muttered bitterly. She ran as fast as her legs could take her. She squirted back some blasts of water in case the blue lady was still pursuing. All of a sudden, she felt pain come to her head again. But it wasn't physical pain; it was a sudden flash of memories and thoughts.  
  
No, not again! Why now? This thing has really bad timing! Ling thought. She realized her fatal mistake: at the Xavier Institute, they could stop her mutation by knocking her out. But out by herself, no one could.  
  
Her head was in flames, and she didn't even feel the knocking out slap on her head.  
  
* * *  
  
"Mystique, take us down." Ling heard a male voice say.  
  
Ling moaned a little bit, and she was able to open up her eyes a little. She saw Mystique, apparently the blue lady, at the controls with a man in the passenger seat. The man was the one that Ling had heard speak. He seemed to be an old man, but she could feel the power coursing through him even though she only saw the white back of his head.  
  
She noticed that she was tied up, a prisoner. She was lying on one side of the helicopter seat towards the back. Sitting in the seat in front of her was a boy about her age. He was playing around with a lighter, which made a CLICK sound every time he flipped it on and off.  
  
"Pyro, would you please stop that? It's getting quite annoying." The man said.  
  
The boy with the lighter gave the old man a classic teenager look, but stopped doing it. Then he noticed that Ling was awake. He smiled a little bit, but gave her a strange look when Ling scowled at him.  
  
"What the hell do you people want with me?!" Ling demanded.  
  
Pyro looked at her thoughtfully. "You know Magneto, you did kidnap her. Don't you think she deserves to know what's going on? Heck, I'd like to know what's going on!"  
  
Magneto, the old man, turned around and looked at the rebellious Pyro. "You will know in time, and may I remind you that you work for me now, and you will have to be patient. I am not as forgiving or patient as Charles. He may want to wait for the human race to grow up, but I will not wait that long." He added under his breath more to himself than to Pyro.  
  
"As for you," he said, now directing his attention to Ling, "I have a proposition for you." 


	5. A Living Hell

"I have a proposition for you." Magneto had said.  
  
"What?" Ling asked, not very interested. She knew where her loyalties lied.  
  
"I know you used to work for Stryker, my dear." Magneto said in practically a whisper.  
  
Only the tight ropes that bound her kept Ling from strangling Magneto.  
  
"Don't. Ever. Remind me of him again!" She hissed. Too many horrible memories came flooding back at the mention of Stryker. Ling looked away, trying hard to keep the tears from springing into her eyes.  
  
"I hate this!" She thought. "I'm tougher than this! Why does the mention of that man make me so mad?"  
  
"Because you're human," said another voice, "and humans feel."  
  
"Well, anyways, I know you were one of his best assassins. Of course, you lost your partner due to that oaf Wolverine, but I'm sure you can do fine solo. If you'll work for us, then I'll give you anything you want. It should be easy for you, considering that this was your old job. You can have a place to stay, thousands of dollars, and a place in the new world that we will bring, where mutants rule-"  
  
"No."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"No. I won't join you. And my partner's name was Yuriko Oyama, you jerk. OK, you've asked me your proposal. Now will you let me go? Or is it not part of the 'new world order' treatment?" Ling said angrily. Her temper was high, and the bringing up of all these people in the past was not improving it either.  
  
Pyro's lips curled into a smile. He obviously was enjoying this. He hasn't seen many people stand up to Magneto (except Professor Xavier) and trash him like that and still look confident. He was beginning to like this girl. She had spunk.  
  
"No one," Magneto began slowly and angrily, "speaks to Magneto like that and gets away with it!"  
  
"Oh yeah?" Ling jeered, "Looks like that's exactly what I'm doing! By the way, you're speaking about yourself in third person. Is that normal for an insane person?" For some reason, she felt good when trashing Magneto. She needed to vent out her hatred at evil guys at, well, an evil guy. And Magneto seemed like just the type. World domination, pah! Humans will always rule the planet no matter what mutants do. There are too many regular people around, and new babies are born every second. Besides, although Ling has good reasons to thoroughly hate humans, she still likes most of them.  
  
Pyro frowned. Magneto needed to hear this, but this was going a little too far. If she keeps on raving like this, she may get herself killed.  
  
"Okay boys and girls," Pyro said in his best adult tone, "let's leave the shouting till we land, 'cause I really don't want to distract Mystique and make her crash the helicopter."  
  
Magneto pointed his fist towards Ling and motioned with his hands the "come here" signal. Ling didn't budge an inch. He tried again but with no avail.  
  
"I have no metal on my body." Ling pointed out.  
  
Magneto sat back in his seat, grumbling about how young people just don't respect their elders enough.  
  
Ling somehow managed to sit herself up. Her hair was all in her face now, and she couldn't see anything. She pointed one loose finger up towards her face and squirted a shot of water at her hair. The pressure flipped her silky black hair away from her face.  
  
Ling looked at Pyro on the other side of her, and she realized that she owed thanks to him.  
  
Thank you. She mouthed to him.  
  
You're welcome. He mouthed back. Then he winked at her.  
  
Ling was puzzled at the wink. What's that supposed to mean? She strained her memory to try and remember what winking meant. She couldn't remember. It was just one of the things she lost.  
  
They landed into Magneto's complex with a smooth THUMP, and Magneto put a metal necklace thing on her neck. Then he and Pyro untied her. She immediately started to break for it, but Magneto choked her and dragged her back using the necklace.  
  
Later, Mystique put a tight metal bracelet on her and removed the necklace.  
  
"That way," Mystique said with a smirk, "We won't have to worry about you running away, now would we?"  
  
"Oh yeah, I'm really looking forward to NOT running away." Ling said sarcastically. But Ling knew that she was in for trouble now. She almost regretted insulting Magneto, because she knew what he was capable of. He was even willing to sacrifice Rogue's life for "the good of all mutants" instead of just sacrificing his own cowardly skin.  
  
"Hello, dear."  
  
Oh no.  
  
"Now, you remember that conversation on the helicopter? Well, if you had agreed to my proposition, I would have forgiven you for your little outburst. Don't worry, I'll offer it to you again, but this time, I think you may need a little convincing." Magneto's eyes gleamed wildly at the word "convincing."  
  
Ling felt extreme fear, because she had felt the whip before, and it was no party. And that look in Magneto's eyes-it was a look of pure malice. And Ling was sure that Magneto was about to make her life a living hell. Ling couldn't help herself, she started to tremble in fear. Her brown eyes were wide, and they reflected of all the fear she had felt in her life.  
  
"Ah!" Ling cried as she was thrown to the cold stone walls of her cell. She hit the wall headfirst, and she tasted blood streaming down from her forehead.  
  
The metal bracelet is letting him do this. Ling thought bitterly. She was in utter pain, and it didn't comfort her knowing that more was coming.  
  
"No, this can't be happening. Not again!" Ling whispered to no one.  
  
Then she was reeled around and hit her back on the hard, merciless ceiling. Then Magneto just let her drop down to the floor.  
  
Ling could feel the terrible pain, more pain that in her mutations, and suddenly, she felt a single minded urge to kill Magneto. Not because he had caused her pain, but because he was a mutant. And she knew the urge was not controlled by her. 


	6. A talk: Prisoner To Unwilling Guard

Ling felt the familiar urge again, and it was terrifying. She tried to give him a blast of water, hoping, hoping so bad that he'd die. A blast came out and knocked Magneto off his feet. Ling's screams and the sudden roar of water caused Mystique and Pyro to come running down.  
  
"Eric!" Mystique gasped. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Yes, but deal with her." Magneto said angrily.  
  
Pyro saw the deep, red cuts on Ling and was shocked. "Well no wonder she hit you! What did you do to her?" He asked, outraged.  
  
Mystique shook her head. "Eric, when trying to convince someone to trust you, you don't go banging their heads on ceilings!"  
  
Ling only heard a few of those words. Her blood was emptying out, second by second. She felt really faint, and her eyes saw the lights fading in and out until all she could see was a blur.  
  
But her sense of hearing was strangely increased. The sound of sneakers screeching on the floor was deafening. She felt an unnaturally warm hand touch her face, and a warm cloth wipe her head wound. That strange, warm, pleasant feeling was the last thing she felt before she blacked out.  
  
* * *  
  
Ling awoke groggily, her entire body aching with bruises and cuts. She felt a white linen cloth wrapped around her head like a bandana. It covered the head cut.  
  
"Great. Just great. I thought things could not get worse, and look at my luck! It did." Ling moaned to herself. She had tried to escape. But she guessed that she was never meant to leave this stupid way of life.  
  
The metal bars opened, and a boy walked in. It was Pyro.  
  
"What do YOU want?" Ling demanded harshly. True, Pyro had been nice to her, but right now she wasn't feeling all that charitable to anyone in the company of Magneto.  
  
"Nothing," Pyro said quickly. When Ling gave him that exasperated look, he winced.  
  
"Okay, okay. I don't know what's up with you girls and that LOOK. I HATE that look." Pyro said.  
  
"Then answer the question."  
  
"I came to check on you."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Well duh, you got conked in the head and you were bleeding like crazy! Not to mention that you were really out of it! It was only the president's speech about the mutant registration act that distracted Magneto from killing you!" Pyro said angrily, his face turning really red.  
  
"Wait, the president gave his speech?"  
  
"That's what I just said."  
  
"What was his decision?" Ling asked quietly.  
  
"He said. He said, um-"  
  
"That's all he said, 'um'? I would have thought that he'd have a decent speech prepared or something!"  
  
"No! He said that, 'Despite the reasonable arguments from both sides, and the unfairness to mutants, as they are humans as well, I am forced to make this hard decision. I know that there are good mutants, and bad mutants. But I think it will be safer for our children-whether they are mutant or not-that I pass the Mutant Registration Act. This Act will only be taken back when we discover that someone is taking advantage of this and forcing evil things on mutants.'" Pyro recited from heart.  
  
"What?! And he thinks STRYKER is not reason enough?! Stryker was right under his nose, and he won't count that?" Ling screamed. She was totally outraged. After all she had been through, after all she had suffered, and it didn't count for ANYTHING when it came to preserving peace? This is so stupid! Ling just wanted to hit herself on the head on the wall a couple of times to get rid of this nightmare. But then she caught herself. It was probably not a good idea to be banging her head on walls at this time.  
  
"I know it sucks. This is why I left Xavier. He doesn't get it. They will NEVER treat us right, no matter what we do." Pyro admitted. He had such sadness in his eyes that Ling's own angry thoughts were pushed away for a moment.  
  
"But you still have to hope. Killing everyone won't solve anything. I should know." Ling whispered. She didn't think Pyro heard. But he did.  
  
"Maybe." He allowed, "But that's dealing with a crazy psychopath, and these people are normal. Sane, at least. Or so I hope."  
  
"You know, Bobby never gave up on you." Ling said suddenly.  
  
For the first time since their short meeting, Ling saw Pyro really let his guard down.  
  
He sighed and said, "I know. I really didn't want to leave them, but-it's way too confusing. It was a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision, you know? But, well, I'm here, and here's where I'm staying."  
  
"You can change your mind, you know." Ling suggested quietly, "You can help me out of here, and both of us can go back. Not only because it's the right thing to do, but because your friends need you, and I'm sure you need and miss them too. Go back to them. You won't regret it."  
  
Pyro looked at his new found friend with an odd look on his face.  
  
"Maybe I will. Someday." 


	7. Escape

Pyro left. Ling had hoped to get through to him-hoping that he'd help her, but at least she could tell Bobby and Rogue to still have a reason to hope.  
  
"That is, if I ever get out of here." Ling muttered. She tried to liquefy herself, but all she could manage was a hand. She knew why. She was dehydrated, and she had used most of her energy on Magneto. And since there is no water in this cell, she had no way of revitalizing herself.  
  
Day after day this went on. She was deadly thirsty, and Magneto was smart enough not to give her any water. She spoke a bit more with Pyro, and she thought that she'd nearly had him convinced-but it was not good enough. Every day, she became weaker and weaker; it took a lot of labor just to breathe properly. Magneto kept on saying, "If you help us, you can have some water and food." But she was a stubborn person-she did not give in, even though she was tempted to many times.  
  
At one point, her voice was so raspy and croaky that she couldn't speak to anyone anymore, and the talks with Pyro had to cease.  
  
"There goes my last chance at freedom," Ling thought bitterly. Not only that, but she was starting to like Pyro, and she enjoyed their time together.  
  
Then, she felt something familiar on her head. With a lot of effort, she looked up and felt a drop of water fall onto her nose.  
  
"Water!" she thought joyfully. That single drop felt like opening presents on Christmas Day. She figured a pipe was broken and somehow it was leaking through. She leaned her head back a little more and felt a drop go into her mouth. This stance was painful, but she slowly felt her energy come back. A little water was better than none at all. After what seemed like hours, she felt that she had enough strength to liquefy her entire body. First, she liquefied herself, including the metal bracelet, and just sat there as a pool of water for a while. Then she re-formed herself and saw that the bracelet was rusted. With some help from the wall, she cracked the bracelet open.  
  
Ling made her escape. She found the helicopter landing and opened the door. She was about to take the helicopter when she realized that she didn't know how to fly it. And she heard Magneto's distant cries of anger.  
  
So to improvise, she leaped into the ocean.  
  
Ling felt like she was in a dream. She was dead tired; she didn't feel like she could swim anymore. But the gentle and rough waters pressing in on her gave her strength, gave her strength enough to make it. She flowed through the seaweed, past the sharks, under the boats, through the waves, and eventually landed on shore.  
  
She somehow, someway, reached the Xavier Institute. It was the only place she could go. To tell Bobby and Rogue about Pyro. To make things right.  
  
She couldn't get in through the door-it was about 9:00 maybe. The dark sky was cloudy, and still was when she liquefied herself once again and made her way in. She went to her old room, hoping Rogue was in there by now.  
  
She came in as a puddle and stayed that way for a moment because Ling didn't think that she had enough energy to re-form. Ling tried, but all she could manage was a watery form of herself. It's a human shape, but it's made of water. Through her blurred water vision, she could see faded shadows of two people kissing-  
  
"Oh my god, who are you?" Rogue's voice shrieked as she broke away from (Ling presumed) Bobby. Ling felt a breath of cold air from Rogue's breath.  
  
"Shoot." Ling muttered as she started going back into a puddle.  
  
Rogue sort of recognized the distorted voice. "Ling?"  
  
"In the flesh. Well, not really."  
  
She finally got herself to re-form, and she collapsed on her old bed.  
  
"What happened to you? Where did you go? The Professor's been looking everywhere, even on Cerebro. He couldn't find you. We-we thought you were dead." Bobby asked.  
  
At first she just laid there, eyes boring into Bobby's ice blue ones. Finally, she pointed to the healing cut on her head and said, "Magneto."  
  
Rogue's eyes flashed angrily at the mention at that name. She fingered one of the white streaks in her hair.  
  
Ling quickly went to the bathroom and took a long drink of water.  
  
"Did you see John there?" Bobby asked quietly. Rogue looked at Ling expectantly.  
  
"Yes." Ling answered.  
  
"Is he an evil follower of Magneto now?" Rogue asked harshly.  
  
"Actually, from what I got from him, he misses you guys and I don't think he has a forever loyalty feeling to Magneto. I tried to get him back, I really did, and I think it almost worked. But it wasn't enough, especially after I lost my voice." Ling explained.  
  
"Oh, and another thing," Ling added, "I know what Magneto's planning." 


	8. Magneto's Plan

Hey! I'd like to say thanks to the people who reviewed: Kellie, ginger, xxharmony187xx, Kayleigh-talitha, and ???GuessWho???. Thanks! Please R&R!  
  
* * *  
  
"I know what Magneto's planning."  
  
Rogue's eyes widened. "Oh god, he's planning something? That's definably not good!"  
  
Bobby put an arm protectively around Rogue. "Yeah, I mean, look at his past plans," he commented bitterly, "that scum would've murdered Rogue and not even give a damn about it."  
  
"Don't remind me!" groaned Rogue.  
  
"What's his fabulous plan now?" Bobby asked.  
  
"I think we'd better find the Professor first," Ling replied, "so I won't have to tell the same story twice. I feel like I'm going to drop dead any minute, and that won't do any good will it?" It was true: Ling was extremely tired, but it won't stop her from doing her duty. It was the least she could do for them.  
  
"The Professor should be in his office-?" Rogue suggested.  
  
"Let's go." Bobby said, and they immediately took off.  
  
They jogged most of the way, but sometimes they had to stop to give Ling a breather.  
  
Finally, they reached the Professor's office. Ling's hand hovered over the door knob for a second, hesitant if she should barge in or not.  
  
"Come in, don't be frightened." A voice inside the room said. With a relived sigh, Ling twisted the gold door knob and walked her way in.  
  
The professor's office was nice, with a huge window that overlooked the beautiful scenery of Westchester. The sun was down, and Ling could see a bright full moon in a clear sky.  
  
"So," Professor Xavier began, "you're not dead."  
  
"No, I guess I'm not, unless I'm a ghost." Ling replied with a faint smile.  
  
"Erik gave you a nasty beating, didn't he?" The Professor inquired, nodding to the head wound and several bruises on her body.  
  
"Yes." Ling answered.  
  
"Sit down, the three of you. No doubt Rogue and Bobby would also like to know, and I suppose you'll tell them later if not now."  
  
Rogue and Bobby's heads peeked through the door, and they sat down next to Ling.  
  
"Now, back to business. I believe you wanted to tell me something?" The Professor encouraged.  
  
"Um, Professor? Could I-?" Ling began, her throat getting dry and voice raspy.  
  
"Yes, of course." He used his power to pour a cup of water in a cup and floated it to Ling. He had one of those water tanks in his office. She gratefully rasped her thanks and gulped down the entire cup. Now she felt better.  
  
"Please begin whenever you're ready," the Professor said patiently. Bobby and Rogue held hands as they watched their friend take a deep breath, and tell Magneto's plan.  
  
"Magneto knows that you are a problem. A big one. He doesn't want to kill you, necessarily, since you were his old buddy, but he's found a different way to stop the X-men. There's a machine-a machine that was invented by Stryker." Ling shuddered involuntarily at the name, "Anyway, Mystique had hacked onto his network and received mounds of information about Stryker, the serum, and his other tools. Apparently, he made some sort of machine. There was not that much detail on the machine-either that or I did not hear the whole thing. But I did hear him say that the machine can somehow control mutants. Make them do what the user wants. I don't know how, or why Stryker didn't just use that on me, but I guess it was a new invention, a recent tool that he had not have time to put into use before his demise.  
  
"Apparently, the machine was not destroyed when the dam flooded the whole area. This machine was located in a different spot, for safekeeping and for testing. Magneto's planning to look for that machine and use it to control mutants who normally wouldn't want to join him. And insure pure loyalty to those who already joined him, but have free spirits, like Pyro. Another thing: When you send out the X-men to stop him, he can control the X-men. Magneto could turn them against you and let Magneto do whatever he's doing, or he could force them to join his side. So he has an army of mutants, some of those have been trained by the best-you, Professor-and the world as we know it will probably end." Ling finished panting for breath and even more tired.  
  
Rogue just looked shocked. Bobby swore under his breath. The Professor stared into Ling's Asian eyes with deep remorse. Ling could feel him opening up some of her memories, probably to check if she had left out anything. But she could feel him hesitating in her head.  
  
"Go ahead." She thought to him. The hesitation lifted, and he rifled through her memories like he was reading pages to a book. Ling closed her eyes for a moment and just let herself rest. She tried to ignore the painful memory of her torture with Magneto, but felt a warm feeling and happily watched the memories of her conversations with Pyro, even though she was in constant pain most of the time.  
  
"Hmm, so he put it in a history museum? We'll have to get that before Magneto does." Professor Xavier sighed. "Unfortunally, Scott's still in depression, Logan's fine, but he's in a tender state as well, and one of my best students is gone forever-" He sighed sadly. "The X-men's been broken up. And a museum break in isn't exactly their type of stealth mission."  
  
"We could do it." Rogue suggested.  
  
The Professor looked at her, surprised. "You, Bobby, and Ling? Don't you think you're bit young-? There are many dangers, Rogue, and a chance at getting killed or caught. Are you sure you want to go through with this?"  
  
"Well, I don't want to be under Magneto's control, and we're just as good as anybody else! Plus, Ling's really good; she could practically be a bodyguard-oh! Sorry." Rogue apologized. But no apology was needed. Ling had fallen asleep.  
  
"At any rate, not tonight, Rogue. She's very tired. I will sleep on it, and we'll figure it out tomorrow. Good night." The Professor dismissed them.  
  
Bobby looked at the sleeping Ling. "Um, want to help me carry her, Rogue?"  
  
"No need." The Professor said. He put a hand to his head, and Ling got up, with her eyes still closed, and started walking out the door.  
  
Bobby and Rogue exchanged a smile and they both separated to go back to their rooms, waiting for tommarow, and to see whether or not they will get to go on a mission. 


	9. The Mission

Hey everybody! R&R or else! Warning! This is a pretty long chapter! Oh yeah, and I don't own any X-men characters. *weep* Besides Ling, of course. *smile* Enjoy!  
  
* * *  
  
The next morning-  
  
Ling woke up newly refreshed and with Rogue hovering over her.  
  
"Oh, good. You're awake. I was just about to wake you up. We have to get ready." Rogue looked at Ling thoughtfully. "And get you a uniform, come to think of it."  
  
"Wait. Hold on. Uniform? What uniform? Oh no, please don't say spandex. I hate spandex!" Ling yelled.  
  
"Don't yell so loud. You know, you can really sleep for a long time, you know! You slept all of last night, and most of this day! It's 4:00 PM. The mission's starting at nine. You have to get a uniform or you don't go!" Rouge explained.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because the Professor says we're going on the mission! You, me, and Bobby, since it's more likely it'll be in a small space, and we're the smallest of the X-Men. Hurry up and get dressed!" Rogue explained, throwing Ling some random clothes.  
  
* * *  
  
Before Ling knew it, she was being measured for her size for black, leather X-Men uniforms.  
  
"Never thought I'd be wearing this kind of stuff again." Ling muttered.  
  
"Lucky you, we have one in your size in stock." Storm told her.  
  
"Yeah. Lucky me."  
  
"Come on, it isn't that bad. Like Scott said, at least it's not yellow spandex." Bobby said.  
  
Storm came back holding her uniform. Ling went in a private area to change her clothes, and came out wearing the uniform.  
  
"It looks good on you, Ling." Rogue commented.  
  
"Black's definably your color." Bobby agreed.  
  
"You're a guy, Bobby, what would you know?" Rogue teased.  
  
"Are you kidding me? I know everything!" Bobby said in a fake, pouting way.  
  
Rogue moved closer to Bobby, but then drew away as if she reconsidered.  
  
Ling felt sorry for the couple. They couldn't really kiss that much, unless you counted that time when she "walked" in on them kissing for two seconds. Of course, at that time she was a puddle of water.  
  
"We'd better get going, you guys. Guys?" Ling was talking to the couple with no response back to her. "Hello?" They were gazing at each other. "For crying out loud!" Ling went over next to Rogue's ear and yelled, "WAKE UP!" Rogue jumped about a foot in the air.  
  
"What was that for?" Rogue complained, rubbing her ear tenderly.  
  
"Sorry about that, but we have to go soon, and we have to get all the equipment and junk ready!" Ling explained desperately.  
  
"Ah'll get you for this, you know ah will!" Rogue vowed. (A/N A little bit of Rogue's accent. Should I keep it, or does it look really stupid? Such tough questions. ^_^)  
  
"Right." Ling answered, distracted.  
  
They went into the storage room and picked out a number of things including ropes, a number of robber's things, (like the one where you can draw a hole in glass and pop it out) and some meat in case they run into any nasty dogs. ("Believe me, I know." Bobby said with a shudder.)  
  
"One more thing before you leave," the Professor said, "do not call each other by your real names because the authorities may go looking for you afterwards. So refer to each other by your nicknames. Do you know theirs, Ling?" The Professor asked.  
  
Ling shrugged.  
  
"I'm Rogue, you already call me that."  
  
"I'm Iceman."  
  
"Very original." Ling thought with a smile.  
  
"I'm Aqua." Ling concluded.  
  
"All right, you three will actually be going in, but Storm, Wolverine and I will be in the Blackbird, waiting."  
  
Logan looked sharply up at the Professor. "Are you sure you want to go? We can't afford you getting caught."  
  
"I will be fine, Logan. I'm just there just in case someone with my powers is needed." Professor Xavier told him.  
  
"Hmm. Well I don't like it. But I'm guessing you're not going to listen to me, are you Prof.?" Wolverine replied.  
  
"Well, we'd better get going."  
  
* * *  
  
Ling had flown in airplanes a lot in her lifetime, but none topped the Blackbird. This plane was so smooth it was almost flawless. It even looked futuristic, at least to Ling's eyes. Just because she did all of Stryker's dirty work didn't mean that she exactly flew in first class. To tell the truth, Ling was a bit nervous about this. This would be her first mission since the breaking of the dam in Canada.  
  
Ling shook herself mentally. It would be fine. It was simple enough anyway: Just break in, get passed all the doughnut eating night guards, get the weapon, and then get out of there!  
  
They landed the Blackbird in a semi-covered patch of trees.  
  
"Won't they see the jet Professor?" Aqua asked, confused.  
  
Professor X smiled. "No, we have invisibility shields. Quite a modern development actually, I believe the military has not yet figured the physics of it out yet. Now go on, we mustn't tarry."  
  
"Wait, what about radar?" Aqua was making sure there were no loopholes for this mission to go wrong. She really didn't want to be captured.  
  
"If any radar can see this jet, then we deserve to get caught." Logan said in what Ling thought was a mimic of Cyclops's voice.  
  
Rogue, Iceman, and Aqua stepped off the invisible jet and approached the fence.  
  
"Do you see anyone?" Rogue hissed.  
  
"No-wait! Bob-I mean, Iceman, can you freeze that camera over there?" Aqua asked.  
  
Iceman looked around him with a puzzled look, apparently not seeing any camera. "What camera?"  
  
"That one, hidden in that tree. Hurry before it turns our way!" Aqua urged.  
  
Iceman spotted it and froze the "stem" of the camera, so that all the guard would see is in one direction. If they froze the entire camera, they would for sure notice a frozen plate of ice on the camera, especially since this was a warm night.  
  
"How the heck did you spot that?" Rogue asked, impressed.  
  
"Experience." Aqua answered.  
  
Iceman froze part of the fence in a circle big enough for them to pass through. Then he kicked the ice to make a nice round entranceway into the museum grounds. Once they let Aqua scan the pathway for cameras, they ran as fast as she ordered them so they would avoid all the camera's gazes.  
  
Once inside, they spotted a guard with his back to the teenage intruders. With one swift bare touch to his neck, Rogue was able to knock him out cold. They tied him up far away from the silent alarm button, in the woman's bathroom. (Aqua and Rogue had to team up to prevent Iceman from going into the ladies room with them. So he waited outside while Aqua and Rogue locked the bathroom door and pulled the guard into a stall.)  
  
After that, they pulled out a metal detector and searched all the exhibits. All the stuff they found were mostly junk: pipes, exhibit props, etc. But then, when they entered the Egyptian Exhibit, they found something square looking under a sarcophagus. It turns out that this sarcophagus, to their surprise, was partly made out of real gold, so it was extremely heavy to move. So Iceman, Rogue, and Aqua toiled at moving the sarcophagus alone for what seemed like 15 minutes. Finally they were able to move it aside. But there was no entranceway whatsoever.  
  
It was Rogue who found it. She fingered what felt like added-on plastic of the floor and ripped it off. There was a hidden hatch. Aqua pulled on the lid and it came off easily due to its old age. There was about a three foot distance from the top to the bottom of the hatch. It was pitch black, so they couldn't see what exactly was down there.  
  
"Rogue, you want to go?" Iceman asked.  
  
"No, there could be rats or spiders down there!" Rogue squealed, shuddering.  
  
Iceman rolled his eyes. "Aqua? Wait-forget it. I'll do it."  
  
He stepped into the hatch, barely fitting in. He held on to Rogue's hands tightly just in case the bottom caved in. He set both feet on the floor and tested it. It seemed sturdy enough. His feet groped around the bottom floor and felt something.  
  
"I think I've got it!" Iceman announced.  
  
"Good, pick it up and give it to me!" Aqua ordered. There was no telling how long the guard would stay unconscious, so she'd like to finish the job quickly.  
  
Iceman gave an army salute and picked the item up. To his surprise, it was sort of light. His hands emerged from the darkness and gave the item to Aqua. Rogue's eyes widened with shock at what they found.  
  
"A TV remote? All this for a TV remote?" she asked furiously. Iceman jumped out of the hatch and snatched it from Aqua's hands.  
  
"No, TV remotes are usually plastic. This is pure metal. But I thought it was a little light for a weapon." Iceman concluded.  
  
Aqua took a good look at it. It was a square hunk of metal. It had a small screen, like the screens on calculators. It also had a bunch of labeled buttons; they were abbreviated letters, so Aqua couldn't make much sense of it. "Maybe it IS the weapon. The thing to control the weapon! No one would be stupid enough to hide the whole dangerous weapon in one place! So they left this remote, which should tell us where the actual weapon is hidden- wait! I see something on the little screen!"  
  
Some words popped up on the screen:  
  
Tcejorp Tnatum Lortnoc si detacol ta Adirolf Ecneics Retnec  
  
"What is this gibberish?" Rogue asked.  
  
"A mix of Russian and Spanish?" Iceman offered feebly.  
  
"No."  
  
"What was that, Aqua?" Rogue asked.  
  
"Stryker always used this kind of code. It's stupid, because it's surprisingly simple. But then, nobody ever thinks of it because it'd be too easy." Aqua said in an emotionless monotone. The less emotion she had when dealing with Stryker, the better focus she has.  
  
"What is it?" Rogue asked again in a gentler voice.  
  
"Backwards. He writes the words backwards. So what it really says is, 'Project Mutant Control is located at Florida Science Center.'"  
  
"Project Mutant Control?" Iceman asked in a disgusted tone.  
  
"Project Mutant Control." Rogue confirmed. She looked no more pleased at it than her boyfriend was.  
  
"Well, at least he has style, picking one of the more tropical states." Aqua joked, trying to break the silence.  
  
"We'd better get this back to the Professor." Iceman said.  
  
Aqua nodded. The trio started heading back toward the gate when Rogue was tackled from the side. Iceman leapt in to help, and Aqua found that they were surrounded! Someone had notified their presence! She shot out streams of water at the other ranks of guards, delaying them for a while. When she turned around, she found that some guards were frozen, and some lay unconscious.  
  
"Are you guys okay?" Aqua asked.  
  
"Fine." The couple answered.  
  
Then they noticed some guards coming in from behind. They ran until they reached a split in the hallway.  
  
"You two go that way, and I'll go this way. We meet back at the bird! Don't worry, I can hold my own." Aqua ordered.  
  
Rogue gave Aqua a worried look, but followed her boyfriend. Aqua took off in the other direction. Hopefully, that would split up the guards.  
  
Aqua took another sharp turn and found herself in an enclosed area. A dead end! The only chance was to go through a little slit of an entrance to get passed them. But in her panic, she failed to see someone coming in from the opposite direction, and she crashed into it.  
  
She fell down hard, and she wouldn't have time to run. Her leg roared with pain. She was about to whack the person she had bumped into, whom she though was a guard, but then the shadow said, "Hmm. I thought you'd be the kind of person who wouldn't be caught dead in that X-Men leather uniform!" It was a very familiar male voice-  
  
"Pyro?" Aqua asked in an astonished voice, "What are you doing here?"  
  
Pyro's face came into the light and he frowned. "I should be asking you the same thing. But we're both after the same thing right? Stryker's machine."  
  
Aqua nodded. But then she heard loud footsteps and loud voices saying, "I heard them come this way!"  
  
And with Aqua's leg hurting like this, how was she going to get herself out of this one?  
  
* * *  
  
That was Chapter Nine! Please R&R! Flames are fine, too! ^_^ 


	10. A Saving Kiss

That was an evil cliffhanger, wasn't it? Once again, I don't own X-Men characters, but I do own Ling/Aqua.  
  
* * *  
  
"Shoot! What are we going to do now?" Aqua winced at the pain in her leg.  
  
Pyro thought quickly. "Hey, I could carry you out!"  
  
Aqua looked at him strangely. "Aren't we supposed to be enemies? Everyone keeps telling me not to trust anyone with Magneto because they'll just throw you in the dirt-" Pyro clamped his hand over her mouth.  
  
"Well, I just happened to be nice for today. And you shouldn't believe everything people say." He said bitterly. So is that what his old friends think of him?  
  
"Well it won't work anyway. They only place is that little hole there, and you probably can't carry me and squeeze yourself in there at the same time!" Aqua reasoned with him.  
  
"Then YOU think of a plan!" Pyro snapped.  
  
"I heard voices! Over there! HURRY!" A guard said distantly.  
  
"Um." Aqua thought quickly. Rule number one: Never get caught. Now if only she could think of something. But some of her thoughts were that she was mildly surprised that Pyro, the enemy, offered to help her. She must have done something right during her captivity with Magneto.  
  
Then, something came with her. She remembered a tactic she had seen in James Bond: Die Another Day, a movie she had seen with Rogue and Iceman during her short stay at the school. It was very likely it wouldn't work, but it was all they've got.  
  
"Hurry, push the equipment somewhere where no one will see it." She muttered. Pyro obeyed, and pushed both of their stuff behind a truck.  
  
"What's your plan?" He whispered.  
  
Just as Aqua heard footsteps round the corner, she grabbed Pyro roughly and kissed him. Pyro's lips were stiff with shock, and at first he just sat there. But then, he heard the footsteps too, and must have figured out what she was trying to do. Then he got into it.  
  
This would be Aqua's last resort, but she had never done this before, and she found it very . . . very pleasant. She would never admit it, but she liked kissing Pyro. He was good at it. It was a Kodak moment.  
  
Footsteps squeaked to a stop, and a rough, haughty voice said, "What are you kids doing here?"  
  
They separated for a moment, moment enough to answer the question.  
  
"Sorry sir," Pyro said with his face down to keep from smiling, "We couldn't get any privacy, and um-we came here-"  
  
"No need to explain it all in detail, son-" It took all of Aqua's self- control to keep from sniggering, "and I suggest that you two get out of here now, and since we're busy, we'll let you off this time. But have you seen any suspicious characters around?" The guard asked.  
  
"No sir, just us and you." Aqua answered, toning her voice a bit higher than usual.  
  
"Well, if you see anyone, tell us, okay?" The guard said distractedly. "Let's try this way, boys." And the group of guards left.  
  
Aqua and Pyro's faces were still inches from each other's. Pyro was in a better position than Aqua to see whether they were really gone or not.  
  
"Are they gone?" Aqua asked.  
  
Pyro really didn't like those guards, and he felt angry at them, so when he confirmed that they had left, he said it with an angry voice.  
  
"Yeah, they're gone."  
  
"Now what?" Aqua asked quietly.  
  
Pyro stared deep into those dark, Asian eyes and saw a lot of things. He saw a lot of pain, but some happiness too, and from that sly smile she had on her face, he knew that she enjoyed kissing him as much as he enjoyed kissing her. So he tilted his head a little, and his lips met hers, and this time, Pyro kissed her. All of a sudden, all of his anger cooled down. Then he realized-he was fire, she was water. It was obvious that water douses fire, so she really doused his anger and hot temper.  
  
Now it was Aqua's turn to be surprised. She had never felt this way before, and frankly, she was a little scared. But when Pyro kissed her, everything, every problem, every fear all melted away.  
  
They kissed for a long time. Finally they separated, but their faces remained close to each other.  
  
"We have to go." Aqua said. "They will be worried about us."  
  
"Yeah, I guess they will." Pyro said reluctantly. "Can you walk?"  
  
"No, but hold on, I'm going to try something." Then an amazed Pyro watched her turn into a being made of water, starting with her feet, and then going to her head. Suddenly she stood up, her human-like figure shaking a watery leg.  
  
"Hey, it actually works! I can't feel anything!" Aqua's distorted voice said.  
  
"Whoa." That was all Pyro could say.  
  
"Come on, let's go." Aqua urged, apparently not noticing Pyro looking at her with his jaw opened. He had not seen anyone ever do anything like that.  
  
She easily squeezed through the small entryway, and once Pyro got his senses back, he followed her.  
  
They wandered for a while, not sure where to go. Suddenly they heard a loud crashing of metal, and a very familiar scream-  
  
"Rogue!" Aqua yelled.  
  
"Marie?" Pyro said, confused.  
  
"Yeah, she and Iceman came with me. Oh no, they might be in trouble! We have to help them!" Aqua said.  
  
But then she saw Pyro hesitating.  
  
"Come on! She's your friend too, you know! Maybe not anymore, but they still talk about you! Did you know that Bobby still hasn't let anyone take over your part of the room? Whenever a new boy comes, the Professor asks if they can have your bed, but Bobby refused it." Aqua said all this with one breath, and she was angry. Their kiss was totally forgotten, her brain was fixed on one thing and it wasn't going away.  
  
But Pyro wasn't hesitating because he didn't want to help them, it's just that Marie and Bobby can take care of themselves against guards. He was afraid that they were facing his boss Magneto.  
  
"Well I don't know about you, but I'm going."  
  
"So am I." Pyro said. He would have to meet his boss eventually, anyway. He was just afraid that he'd try and make him go against Ling.  
  
"Good. Let's go."  
  
They jogged and followed the sound of the shriek. As they drew closer, the two could hear indistinct voices, and sounds of crashing metal.  
  
They walked around the building but found no way in.  
  
"Stand back." Pyro said. Aqua stood back, wondering what he was going to do. He took out that same lighter he was using on the helicopter and manipulated it to hit the wall.  
  
"You're trying to melt it." Aqua said a-matter-of-factly.  
  
"It may take a while though." Pyro grunted. This was going to take about half of his energy, the wall is so thick.  
  
Finally, Pyro was able to melt a significant amount of the wall so they could get through. Aqua doused whatever remaining fires were still there. They heard clanging and clashing down the hall, so they followed the sounds and found themselves in the midst of a raging battle.  
  
They saw Magneto and Mystique, along with a couple of young new recruits. One was a girl sending sparks of electricity and a boy was sending earthquakes to the opposing team-the X-Men.  
  
They saw Rogue with a big bloody slash on her arm-the reason for the scream. She was sitting there, eyes closed .Iceman was freezing incoming objects and protecting Rogue and the Professor looked like he was trying to put some sense into Magneto, as well as send some scraps of floor tiles or pieces of the wall at them for delay. Storm was matching her lightning against Magneto's lightning girl. Logan was trying to claw his way to the other boy, as well as protect the Professor. That's when Aqua noticed another boy lying on the ground next to Rogue, veins showing visibly on his face. Then Aqua realized that Rogue was sitting down because she was concentrating. Then her eyes opened, flashing brilliant colors. She put her palms out towards Magneto, and yelled for her boyfriend to move. Once he did, Rogue shot out brilliant specks of light from her hands, causing most to temporarily go blind and be distracted.  
  
Everyone, except Magneto, was lying on the ground. Magneto reflected that just in time. That was when he noticed the onlookers.  
  
"Ah! Pyro, good for you to finally come!" Then he noticed Aqua, "And I see you've brought the escapee with you. Good, you've recaptured her again. Come here, with the girl, NOW!" Magneto ordered.  
  
"John?" Two astonished voices asked. Iceman looked at him reproachfully, obviously thinking what Magneto was thinking, that he'd captured Aqua. Rogue just looked shocked.  
  
"The one and only." John joked.  
  
"You think after all that time you can just joke about it? Let her go!" Rogue demanded furiously.  
  
Aqua starting to reform, and the water all melted away into a puddle beneath her.  
  
"It's Ok, I went with him!" she shouted.  
  
But Rogue took this the wrong way. "What? Now YOU'RE betraying us! God, how could you?"  
  
"No, that's not what I meant!" Aqua shouted desperately, "Iceman talk to her!"  
  
Iceman talked to her softly, kissing her briefly on the cheek. That kiss made Aqua flush a little as the memory of her kiss came back.  
  
"Sorry!" Rogue apologized.  
  
Aqua nodded.  
  
"All right, enough of this! Pyro, she's right next to you! Whatever brief alliance you have made, end it now and give it to her! I can give you rewards you cannot even imagine!" Magneto baited Pyro.  
  
"Pyro. . ." Aqua trailed off. She looked at him with a pleading look. She could take him out if he did go back to the dark side.  
  
Pyro's mind was arguing with himself, but his heart only had one direction. If only he could decide which one to listen to. . .what was he going to decide? 


	11. Pyro's Decision

Pyro's head spun. In truth, when he had decided to join Magneto, he sort of regretted it after. Magneto didn't really let him do anything for a while anyway, because apparently he didn't trust him enough. Well, if he went to Magneto now, he would be trusted and will probably actually do something for once. But . . . he couldn't betray Aqua. She had helped him get out of that tight spot of trouble, but even if he went back, would they even accept him again? He'd run out on them, and he was sure there was some bitter feelings between his old friends and him.  
  
"But despite all that, Bobby still kept your bed empty because he believed in you, that'd you'd come back." A voice in Pyro's head said. Yeah, but still.  
  
He looked back and forth between his friends on one side, and Magneto on the other. His friends still believed in him, and he realized that Professor Xavier was the kind of guy who would forgive someone if they came back. Magneto could never do that. He'd hold a life-long grudge against you.  
  
Memories flashed in Pyro's head. Meeting Bobby for the first time-Pyro had accidentally set a plant on fire when he was the new kid at school. He panicked and at the time didn't know how to put out his fires. All of a sudden the plant-on-fire turned into a ice sculpture. Pyro turned around to meet his rescuer and found Bobby.  
  
"Hi, I'm Bobby." He said. He had a friendly air, and Pyro knew that they'd be great friends.  
  
When they first met Rogue, they both tried to impress her. Pyro knew that Bobby liked her-they caught a glimpse of her when she first came. Pyro thought she was pretty, but didn't really have any feelings for her like Bobby did. The only reason he had shown off to her was to annoy Bobby and give him a chance to impress Rogue. And it worked.  
  
Back to the present. He saw those eyes looking up at him, waiting for his decision with no expression on her face. Aqua helped turn the tide to the Professor's way, because he really did enjoy kissing her. He knew that if he did join Magneto's side and try to bring her to him, she'd kick his butt and slice him up 8 ways because of her elemental advantage. Then she'd probably drag him back to the Professor anyway, this time as a prisoner. He decided that the best way to go-to be with his friends and the first girl he kissed, and not get bruises all over his body and be embarrassed because he got beat up by a girl-was to rejoin the Professor's side.  
  
Pyro pointed to Aqua. "I'm with her."  
  
For the first time in a long while, Aqua truly smiled. She grabbed Pyro's hand and he followed her back to the Professor, who was smiling also.  
  
"Good to have you back, John." He said.  
  
"Good to be back." Pyro replied.  
  
"So, not going to run out on us anytime soon, are you, John?" Bobby said.  
  
"Not this time, Iceman." Pyro replied. He could see the small smile twitching on Bobby's face. Sure he had his doubts, but in the end he was happy to see his best friend back.  
  
"YOU DARE BETRAY MAGNETO?"  
  
"Dude, you know you have a really big ego? You'd have to if you talk about yourself in third person like that!" Pyro jeered.  
  
"Pyro?" Aqua said.  
  
"Yeah?" He replied.  
  
"I really don't think that was a good idea." She pointed out.  
  
"Well, now that you mention it . . . I don't think it's a good idea anymore either!" Pyro said, once he saw the murderous look in Magneto's eyes.  
  
"Fool. You think I don't know how to punish traitors?" Magneto boomed. "You have metal on your body."  
  
Suddenly, Pyro's left arm twisted. Aqua saw a watch: A sports watch, with metal on it. This will not turn out good.  
  
Pyro yelped in pain. The arm twisted hideously, causing extreme pain for Pyro. He was yanking at the watch, trying to get it off, but it the pain froze him.  
  
Suddenly, his entire body was on fire! The pain caused his powers to increase tremendously! Bobby covered Rogue protectively, while the Professor, Wolverine, and Storm winced at the intense heat. Only Aqua stood where she was, unaffected by the heat, even though she was the closest to him. Her water powers canceled out the heat.  
  
"Attack them!" Magneto ordered, pulling Pyro's flaming arm straight toward the closest person-Aqua.  
  
Aqua though for a split second, and turned her body into water again. She had never tried this before, but it was the only thing she could think of.  
  
Pyro passed right through her, and she focused all of her energies on rusting the metal parts of the watch and dousing his fire.  
  
But once he passed through her, Aqua collapsed, breathing heavily. She was a puddle again, and some of the water was evaporated by Pyro's intense heat. Some parts of her were missing, splashed somewhere around her. Aqua called out to all the water around her, and got most of it. But when she reformed, some pieces of clothing were ripped, torn, or not there at all. And she laid on the floor, sucking in the pain. It's not a piece of cake to have someone pass right through you. (Unless you were Kitty)  
  
The rusting weakened Magneto's grasp on the metal, and gave Bobby and Rogue enough time to snap it off his wrists.  
  
Pyro gasped out his thanks, and he got up, his eyes flaming with anger.  
  
"You know what, Magneto? When I joined you, I didn't think. I was a stupid kid who just wanted people to leave mutants alone and let me use my powers publicly without fear. I thought I could get that with you. But you know, going with you was the must stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, and I regret it. So, DAMN YOU!" Pyro yelled, and he hurled the hugest fire ball Aqua had ever seen in her entire life. It was so huge and overwhelming, not even Aqua's natural water defenses could shield her from feeling a little of that heat. But if she could feel it, that means the others were going through hell.  
  
Magneto screamed as he was hurled backwards. He crashed into the wall and went limp. He fell down and was immediately covered by ceiling debris, but he was still squirming, which meant that he was still alive.  
  
"Come everyone, that blast will hold Magneto, but not for long. Everyone on the Blackbird!" Professor Xavier ordered. "You too, John." He added after Pyro hesitated. Pyro smiled a bit and got on second to last. Professor Xavier looked at Magneto's buried figure for a little. He sighed.  
  
"Oh, Erik . . . my old friend, what are we to do?" Professor Xavier sighed as he wheeled himself onto the Blackbird. Now the only thing left on the agenda is to ask Ling about the weapon, and have a little talk with John . . . 


	12. A Little Talk

Thanks again for those who reviewed: you guys really make my day. Sorry I didn't update in a long time. I was at an overnight camp. I don't own X-Men characters but who doesn't want to? Here's chapter 11!  
  
* * *  
  
They were flying overhead the museum, having just escaped Magneto. Pyro, Ling, Bobby, and Rogue (I refer to Bobby and Ling by their mutant names only on missions. Rogue because she wants to be, and Pyro because Ling doesn't know his name's John yet.) were sitting in the back. Storm was piloting the airplane, so she didn't have to deal with Pyro just yet. Professor Xavier wanted to have a word with him, but he decided it was best to let the children sort out their problems first.  
  
There was an uncomfortable silence between them for a few minutes.  
  
Finally, Ling said, "Hey, um, do you want me to leave? Cause, I didn't know Pyro before he left you guys, so I'm thinking it's personal, and it has nothing to do with me."  
  
"No, no! Stay. I don't think you've met him properly or whatever. So, Ling, this is John, a.k.a. Pyro." Rogue said. Ling was wrong. She WAS a part of this, since it was obvious that for most of it, the reason John came back was because of Ling. Maybe she didn't see it, but Rogue sure as heck did.  
  
"Hi." John said simply.  
  
"Okay, this silence is ticking me off, now WHY did you come back? I mean, you've been gone for a long time, and all of a sudden, you come back! Why?" Bobby demanded suddenly.  
  
John was taken aback by the suddenness of his best friend's question.  
  
"Uh-" He instinctively looked over at Ling, and he saw that her face was turning pink.  
  
Rogue looked at the both of them, back to forth. She smiled a sly grin. She knew what was going on. But by the look on her boyfriend's face, apparently Bobby didn't see it. Guys could be so blind to such obvious things sometimes.  
  
"Well, for one I was getting sick and tired of Magneto. He wouldn't let me do anything, I never knew anything, and I was completely in the dark. Plus I was, you could say, in detention for a while since she escaped. And he was so mad that he blamed it on me." John jerked a finger Ling's way. "Seriously, I maybe would have escaped WITH you, but you sort of jumped into the water, and technically, I hate water and the ocean. The ocean. A little water is okay, but-" John was now rambling on and on.  
  
"John!" Rogue snapped. "Listen, we're glad you're back, but don't expect us to trust you one hundred percent again. You ran out on us once, and you might be a spy."  
  
Bobby nodded. "You betrayed us, John. And you set my parent's house on fire."  
  
John shrugged. "Hey, I personally thought your house needed remodeling anyway. Besides, Ronny needed to be taught a lesson. You of all people should know, Iceman."  
  
Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but he was frozen.  
  
Rogue gave John a look that said, "Good going. Now he's upset."  
  
Professor Xavier decided that it was a good time to intervene.  
  
"John, I would like to speak to you. Alone, if you please." He said.  
  
John got up gratefully, happy to be away from his old friends. It was just strange. He'd never felt this uncomfortable around his friends before. Unless you counted the times when Bobby and Rogue were having a little mushy moment. But then, that used to just make him want to barf.  
  
"Now, John, first things first: Why did you leave us?" The Professor began.  
  
"I-I guess I just felt like I was being limited. And it was a spur of the moment decision. I thought they could help me." John stumbled with his words. He didn't know how to explain it. He wasn't usually all that open and stuff, but it didn't matter with the Professor. You had to mention everything, or he'll just go poking in your mind.  
  
The Professor studied him. John felt uncomfortable and shifted in his seat.  
  
"If Magneto gave you the freedom your heart desires, then why come back?" The Professor asked.  
  
Professor Xavier knew why. He just thought that his rebellious student needed to discover why for himself. John is a very complicated person. That is because his needs and wants were different, and even John himself didn't know what exactly the difference was.  
  
So he was hesitant in his answer.  
  
"I missed my friends. And Magneto didn't really let me do anything or know anything really." John rushed, feeling pathetic and tiny in the presence of this powerful mutant.  
  
The telepath nodded his head. But he also raised his eyebrows as if to say, "and?"  
  
"And it just felt right to go back." John never was very good at saying his feelings.  
  
Professor Xavier knew that there was one other reason that John was too embarrassed or confused to say, even if he knew that the Professor would know eventually.  
  
"John, the other students in the Institute is under the impression that your not frequently met aunt is sick, and because she had issued a plea that all her family-even ones she had not met before-should come. I made you go. Only Bobby and Rogue and the X-Men knew the truth. You will stick to that story." Professor Xavier explained. "And don't attempt to betray us again, John. We will be watching."  
  
John nodded his head. "I'm sorry I left Professor."  
  
Xavier smiled. "All is not forgotten John, nor is it forgiven. But bit by bit, trust can be rebuilt, and old wounds can heal. I suggest that you try to do just that with some people beyond this door. And keep some bonds you have just made." He added with a wink.  
  
John nodded again, and left the room.  
  
Maybe there was hope for him after all. The Professor thought to himself, smiling.  
  
* * *  
  
Ok, ok, I know that wasn't a very interesting chapter, but I promise the next chapter's going to be more surprising, and more John/Ling too. Please review! 


	13. Vision Of A Rescue

Hey everybody! I created another X-Men story, so if you like this story, read that one! It's called Nothing is Set In Stone, and a summery of it is: Bobby, Rogue, and John is blasted into the future due to an explosion in a battle. They find that the world has changed; the Mutant Registration Act is unleashed, and it doesn't stop there. Mutants are now illegal, and people are allowed to kill them. Mutant hunting. So the trio team up (John is reluctant) with a fire-starter named Blaze, and they have to figure out what went wrong in their time so they can stop this from happening. But the question is: can they get home? Please review!  
  
* * *  
  
John walked back from his talk with the Professor. He saw Ling give him a warm smile, but Rogue and Bobby's faces remained neutral. John figured that they were sort of happy that he came back, but because of the sudden change they were still doubtful of their motives. Then he realized: the Professor had said that they made an excuse that he was visiting an aunt. Which meant that they thought he might come back. Interesting.  
  
"What'd the Professor say?" Ling asked.  
  
"Interrogation, the usual." John replied.  
  
Rogue made a coughing noise.  
  
Bobby finally gave up on silence and asked outright, "So does he trust you or not? Are we going to throw you out of the plane or keep you in here?"  
  
"He-" John began, but he didn't finish due to the scream of pain of the girl next to him.  
  
Ling was holding her head and gasping what sounded like, "No, no!" under her breath.  
  
Rogue turned pale. "Oh no, it's happening again!"  
  
John looked around, confused. "What's happening?"  
  
"Mutation." Rogue said. "Last time it happened she nearly flooded the school. That's when she ran away. PROFESSOR!"  
  
The Professor came as fast as his wheelchair could take him. "It's happening. Rogue, get ready to take her power if she loses control. I'll try to give her some mental support."  
  
John was confused. What the heck is happening here? Ling, flood the school? She was reckless, maybe, but John thought she liked Xavier's school. Rogue took off her glove and crouched next to Ling. Her hand was on the covered part of her shoulder, but ready to take her power if needed. John didn't know all the details, but he was sure that Ling would need all the help she could get on this, whatever it is.  
  
* * *  
  
The familiar pain split Ling's head in two. She was on an airplane; she had to learn to stop it now! The problem is, the more she tried, the more pain was inflicted. What is the cause of this stupid thing?!  
  
Ling felt like she was going to lose it, it would all end, and it would be her fault . . .  
  
Then she felt a powerful presence in her head. It was strangely familiar.  
  
~Professor? ~  
  
~Yes. You must fight it! ~  
  
~I'm trying, it just hurts so much! ~  
  
~Try-~  
  
~Ahh! ~  
  
She was losing it, but something different happened. She was seeing her own memories, but of her childhood. She saw her 5 year old self playing on the swing with her father. It continued, and she felt the Professor watching them too. Finally, the memory slideshow reached around the time she was captured. When she found out she was a mutant. She saw another memory of her and her father, doing what dads do. But then, that memory turned black and white. Then, other memories, overwhelming memories with blasts of color, surfaced. She watched herself be experimented on, men in white lab coats forcing her to show her powers, exhausting her until she could do no more. Then, those terrifying moments came faster and faster that all of it was a blur. It only slowed down enough to show that same memory of a red- haired woman clinging onto something amidst the water.  
  
Except now it was longer. The woman was getting eaten up by the waves; it seemed as if all of her energy was depleted. Ling had swum up to her easily, since her power allowed her to breathe underwater. She grabbed the woman and took her to a secret underwater base, then left, promising to come back with help for her. But then as she swum up, she was hit by something big and hard, fell into the water, finding herself looking at the face of the drowned and chained slave master, Stryker. She punched him in the face, even though he was already dead. Ling felt really good looking at that memory. Then her mutation kicked in and she forgot everything.  
  
Until now.  
  
The memories ended, and Ling braced herself for the pain. It came, and tears clung to her eyelashes as she struggled with this. She felt terribly cold and lonely, and even with the Professor's mental support she knew she wouldn't win. Ling felt herself about to give in, when she suddenly felt warm. She felt a warm touch on her hand, and someone gave her hand a squeeze. She felt better, and she focused on the warmth of the person's hand. It gave her strength, it gave her hope.  
  
Then, the pain just ended. It was mellowed out, but she was still in a trance. Somehow, she heard the ocean, and she heard a telepathic voice speaking to her . . .  
  
~Remember . . . you promised . . . ~  
  
Ling snapped out of it. She suddenly opened her eyes. She noticed that it was . . . Pyro who was holding her hand. He blushed and moved his hand away, moving it to play with his lighter again. On the corner of her eye, Ling noticed Rogue looking interested at the two, and she had a sly grin on her face.  
  
The Professor blinked a couple of times and was looking thoughtfully at Ling. Ling was shocked at this piece of information she had just learned. And the person must have been a telepath to send a message like that.  
  
"What is it, Professor?"  
  
"I believe Ling may know where Jean Gray is." The Professor replied.  
  
* * *  
  
There! Finally updated. Well, please review, reviews keep me going! 


	14. Jean Grey

Thank you Obiwanfan for being my first reviewer in a while. Please read and review this story!!!! I do not own X-Men characters, but Ling is mine!  
  
* * *  
  
Bobby and Rogue stared at Ling curiously.  
  
"But . . . Dr. Grey's . . . dead." Bobby said.  
  
"No she isn't. I guess I saved her, you know, being able to breathe underwater and all. But then I forgot, so she was kind of sitting there for awhile. But I remember that she was almost dead, though."  
  
Suddenly a choking noise was heard at the doorway. Scott was there, and it looked like he heard it all.  
  
"Jean's . . . alive?" he gasped out.  
  
Ling nodded.  
  
Scott had some . . . expression on his face, something that Ling couldn't identify. It looked kind of like the face that Bobby and Rogue have when looking at each other. To this day Ling still couldn't figure out what it meant.  
  
"Where is she?" Scott demanded.  
  
"Um, in Canada, where Stryker was. I think I brought her to an underwater safe house."  
  
"STORM!" Scott bellowed, and then they distantly heard him ordering her to fly to Canada.  
  
"Are you sure about this?" Rogue asked.  
  
"Positive. Unless someone's been messing with my head, as usual, and taking us into a trap." Ling laid out the other possibility like she was used to doing with Yuriko.  
  
Three heads snapped to look at her and said, "A trap?"  
  
"What? It's a possibility!" Ling defended herself.  
  
"Should we be risking it Professor? Magneto might be following us . . ." John argued.  
  
"Yeah, you should know plenty much about Magneto, don't you PYRO?" Bobby snapped.  
  
~You could see that coming, couldn't you, John? ~ The Professor told John using his telekinesis.  
  
~Yeah, I guess. ~ John thought.  
  
The uncomfortable tension lingered in the air, even after Professor Xavier left to consult with Storm. They decided that they had to take the chance if Jean is really there. The four teenagers were in silence, and the only one that wasn't really bothered was Ling, since she was used to just standing around and waiting for orders.  
  
"You know what just happened when you saw Dr. Grey?" John asked suddenly.  
  
Ling jerked a little, surprised. "What about it?"  
  
"What's the deal with it? Obviously it's something bad, but everybody else knew about it, and I'm still confused." John said.  
  
"Fine, I'll tell you. Short version: I used to work for Stryker, but not willingly. He put a serum in his mutant slave's necks, to make sure they listen to him." Ling flipped her long hair forward and showed John the round mark on her neck. "But me and Yuriko-Lady Deathstrike-were partners, and we had the original serum, which Stryker improved later. It was kind of like a drug-we had to get it constantly. I never figured out why, until I had been without it for a long while and the mutation started. It controls me and forces me to undergo Stryker's most frequent demand-kill mutants. So that's why everybody was all panicky when it happened today. The end." Then Ling turned away and stared at the wall. She hated talking about Stryker, and the only reason she did was because John needed to know.  
  
"Oh, sorry." John muttered.  
  
Bobby and Rogue had been listening, even if they've heard the story before. Neither of them ever hated Ling for it, because it wasn't her fault. She may have thought that, but nobody was harmed, and actually, the two felt sorry for her, since she could do nothing about it.  
  
The rest of the trip was flown in silence, and Wolverine was starting to get worried.  
  
"Chuck, aren't kids supposed to be laughing and making fun of teachers when they're by themselves, not sitting in silence like that?" Wolverine asked.  
  
"It's John, Logan, Bobby and Rogue are still uncomfortable with him around, and I'm not quite sure that Bobby has forgiven him yet. Neither has Rogue. Ling's the only one who's been nice to him, when she isn't deep in her thoughts and staring at the wall." Professor replied.  
  
Wolverine stared at the Professor suspiciously. "Have you been spying on their minds, Xavier?"  
  
"Bobby and Rogue's silence is easy to see why. Ling is harder to understand. She's been cut off from a normal life for so long; she doesn't really know how to act around others. But I'm glad when you found her when you did, Logan, because now she gets that chance." Professor X looked at Logan.  
  
"I hope so." Wolverine replied.  
  
* * *  
  
"Professor, we have reached our destination." Storm announced.  
  
"Excellent, Storm. Good. Logan, get Ling up here."  
  
"Kid, we're there. We need you to tell us where it is." Wolverine said. Ling silently got up and followed him into the cockpit.  
  
"One question first: can this jet go underwater?" Ling asked.  
  
Scott smiled. "If this jet can't do that, then it's not worth our time flying it."  
  
"I'll take that as a yes. Ok, you see that big extra rock over there?" Ling pointed.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Go underwater and go to that rock. Then you have to use your lights like a signal. Sort of like code. Flash it nine times then wait for two seconds and then flash it three times." Ling instructed.  
  
* * *  
  
Bobby, Rogue, and John felt the Blackbird diving down . . . into the ocean?!  
  
"Oh my god, are we crashing?! Ocean equals water, and water is very, very bad!" John yelled.  
  
Bobby and Rogue smiled at John's discomfort with water. Since his element is fire, he hates most water-especially the ocean.  
  
* * *  
  
"We're going down." Storm announced. She found the rock and did the flashing pattern exactly like Ling said.  
  
It worked.  
  
A part of the rock opened up to reveal a narrow tunnel, just barely big enough for the Blackbird to go through. Storm, very carefully, guided the jet into the cave. They all heard the stone gate close up behind them, and it made John a little nervous, but they went on.  
  
Finally, there was a part where you had to go up towards the surface. They went up there and found that there was a cavern type area there, except it was like a beach house. They left the jet floating in the water, and all of them got out. They all marveled at the craftsmanship of this cavern, and how it was like a home, practically.  
  
"Well, we all know why it's a 'safe' house. No one knows where it is!" John commented.  
  
Ling started walking towards the doorway ahead of them. The others followed.  
  
Inside was beautiful. Every tile on the floor, every bit of stone wall was put in to perfection. There was a couch, a TV, a kitchen, practically everything a teenager would need.  
  
"Did you build this?" Professor Xavier asked.  
  
"No. Actually, I don't remember how I know about this place. I just . . . knew, and it was the only place I knew to take the red-haired woman . . . her name's Jean, right? I don't know . . . she should still be here." Ling replied, sounding a little confused.  
  
"JEAN?! JEAN, ARE YOU THERE?" Scott yelled. Ling covered her ears since she was standing right next to him.  
  
Then, a figure came out of the shadows.  
  
"Scott? Is that you?"  
  
* * *  
  
Review, review, review, please! 


	15. Kissing Fest

I am really sorry I haven't updated in a long time! Something was wrong with my internet connection so I couldn't go on and post this, so here it is! This chapter has a lot of romantic stuff in it, so PLEASE REVIEW!!!!  
  
* * *  
  
"Jean? Is that you?" Scott's voice wavered a little and then cracked with emotion.  
  
All was silent, and Professor Xavier smiled knowingly.  
  
Scott ran to Jean, and they embraced each other tightly, and then kissed passionately. Someone made a whistling noise, and everyone innocently looked at other things around the room with big grins on their faces.  
  
Except Ling. She felt her lips curl into a smile automatically, but she watched them and recognized the gesture. That's what she did to John, and that's what he did in return, even thought it wasn't necessary. This puzzled her, and he had also held her hand on the Blackbird. She just couldn't understand this new . . . mystery.  
  
When Scott and Jean a few minutes later didn't come up for air, everyone decided that they'd give them time, and later will give Jean their astonished "YOU'RE ALIVE?!" welcomes.  
  
"Hey, where's your bathrooms Ling? I want to get there before anyone else does, or there'll be a line . . ." Rogue muttered in Ling's ear.  
  
Ling snapped out of her thoughts and gestured to Rogue to follow her. The two boys followed her, having nothing else to do. Bobby kept a close watch on Pyro's back, making sure he didn't try anything.  
  
Ling lead them through this huge safe house, knowing each twist and turn that came their way.  
  
"No wonder this is a "safe" house," Pyro muttered, "all these twists and turns would confuse anybody who didn't know the place!"  
  
Ling lead them with ease with absolutely no doubt about where she was going. She was worried that she left the other X-Men by themselves with no guide, but since Scott and Jean took up that room, no doubt they'd like to go exploring on their own. Ling was also confused about how she knew where this was and how she memorized the way with a mental map in her brain when she has no recollection of ever being here besides her recent recalled memory of saving Jean.  
  
Finally, they came to a bathroom. Two of them, in fact. They both had an engraving that said, "Ladies" or "Men" like in those public bathrooms.  
  
"Can I say something about this-?" John began.  
  
"No." Rogue and Bobby cut him off at the same time.  
  
"Well, I guess you know which bathroom to go to, Rogue." Ling smiled. "And you guys can go too, I guess."  
  
"Glad to know we have your permission!" John said sarcastically. Ling glared at him and flicked a couple sprays of water at his head.  
  
"Ahhh! No! Water!" John rubbed his head with his sleeve. Bobby took this chance and ran into the bathroom.  
  
"HEY!" John protested loudly.  
  
"Sorry, gotta be faster than that!" Bobby's muffled voice said from inside the locked door.  
  
John groaned and muttered how it wasn't fair.  
  
"LIFE isn't fair." Ling said, clearly enjoying toying with him.  
  
"God, now you sound like my father, and he turned out to be a jerk." John said darkly.  
  
Ling's face altered from a typical teenager look to the solemn blank face she used to wear a lot before she met the X-Men. John could feel her inching away from him and closing herself off to the world.  
  
"What'd I say now?" John asked.  
  
"My dad. I haven't seen him in years. I don't even know if anyone in my family is even alive." Ling said quietly. "I looked for them after I was freed. They had left, and no one knew where they were."  
  
"Oh. Sorry."  
  
"Yeah, well . . . that's life, I guess. Nothing but misery."  
  
"C'mon, life isn't all that bad! You just haven't seen the perks of life." John said.  
  
"And is betraying your friends a perk? For them? Or for you?" Ling demanded.  
  
"For Magneto, I guess. Listen, I . . . I didn't mean to hurt them like that, okay? They just happened to stumble on me in a helicopter and I'm walking around in this cold snow, all right? If I didn't go with them, I probably would have drowned in the lake water. It was cold, and the helicopter looked warm." John said lamely.  
  
"I don't believe that's the whole truth."  
  
"That's because it isn't. Look, I think I've told you this before: Magneto offered something the Professor never did. I was sick and tired of having to hide these powers from people, and done with taking their abuse and insults about us when they don't even know us! Sick of them judging us like we're animals on display, pointing out our main fault-being different. Xavier and Magneto fought for the same thing, except with totally different methods. The Professor's theory would take years; maybe decades for it to work and have them trust us. I couldn't . . . I CAN'T wait that long, Ling. Magneto's plan was faster, and I was drawn to that, okay? But I came back, didn't I? I guess in the end, I missed my friends and stuff, and Xavier let you in on things. Magneto doesn't tell you anything." John caught his breath. That felt good to get that out.  
  
Ling nodded. "Felt good to get that out, huh?"  
  
"Oh yeah."  
  
"So, what ARE the perks of life?"  
  
"Let's see . . . fast food, MacDonald's is the place to go; now they have dip in dots, which are great . . . TV, computers, girls, sports, girls, music, girls, school-just kidding, girls, cars-if Logan ever lets me drive, and oh yeah-"  
  
"-girls." Ling finished for him. "That it?"  
  
"No, but that's all I can think of right now."  
  
"No offense or anything, but the music I hear is horrible." Ling said with a smile.  
  
John looked surprised. "No way is music horrible! I cannot believe that you don't like music!"  
  
Ling scrunched her nose. "Well, Stryker used to play this really awful music all the time and I had to stand there and listen to it all day long. What was it called? Um . . . I think its called country music." (A/N: No offense to anyone who likes country)  
  
John laughed. "Ha! Yeah, I hate country too. Well, wait till you hear the other types of music, like rock, pop and rap."  
  
"Glad to hear there's more to it than country."  
  
An uncomfortable silence followed that. Suddenly John complained out loud, "How long does it take for those two to go to the bathroom? Did they crack a hole between their bathrooms and start making out or something?"  
  
Ling shrugged.  
  
"C'mon, Ling there has to be another bathroom around here, light the way." John said, and tugged at her arm.  
  
Ling learned enough to get the hint. "Ok, this way."  
  
After the two turned the corner, Bobby stepped out of the bathroom.  
  
"All right, John, you can have it . . . now. Where'd they go?" Bobby looked around with a confused expression.  
  
Seconds later, Rogue came out.  
  
"Hey Bobby. Where'd those two go?"  
  
"That's what I've been wondering."  
  
"They probably want to be alone or something." Rogue suggested.  
  
"Alone? Like when WE want to be alone? Why would they want to do that?" Bobby asked, incredulous.  
  
Rogue rolled her eyes. "You mean you didn't notice?"  
  
"Notice what?"  
  
"Guys can be so blind sometimes. On the Blackbird, John held her hand, and he also came back to us when he was with her. Something must have happened between them, I cannot believe you didn't see it!" Rogue pushed.  
  
Bobby thought about it for a moment. "Hmm . . . no, don't think I noticed that."  
  
Rogue sighed. "Let's go find them for the sake of finding them."  
  
* * *  
  
After much wandering, John and Ling found a type of family room, TV, computer and all. There was even a glass window showing the lake and all the fish swimming. John looked uncomfortably at the water.  
  
"Is that safe? I mean, the glass could break and water come splashing through . . ." John asked.  
  
"Don't be a chicken, it's just water." Ling replied.  
  
"Well I'm not the one with the power to breathe underwater or control it." John retorted gruffly.  
  
Ling shrugged and then sat down on the couch. "Hmm. This is comfortable. Whoever made this place made it for teenagers."  
  
John collapsed next to her.  
  
They were silent for a minute, looking at their surroundings.  
  
"So . . . any idea what they're going to do to you when we get back to the mansion?" Ling asked.  
  
"I don't know. It's like the Professor to let me back in that easily, but the other teachers are going to be on my back twenty four seven."  
  
"Hmm. Think Bobby will let you move in with him again?"  
  
"Only on the condition that he gets to freeze me whenever he wants."  
  
Ling giggled, surprising herself. She put her hand to her mouth at this unfamiliar sound.  
  
John moved her hand away from her mouth. "Why'd you do that?"  
  
"I-I don't know . . . I think-" Ling stuttered.  
  
But John silenced her with a kiss. She returned it, and her train of thought trailed off . . .  
  
* * *  
  
"C'mon Marie! We've looked in a gazillion hallways and still no sign of them! Ling has a mental map, so let's just forget it before we get lost!" Bobby urged his stubborn girlfriend.  
  
"No, Bobby, we're going to find them and we're going to-AH!" Rogue's sentence was cut short and she stopped in her tracks.  
  
"What is it?" Bobby asked as he looked over his girlfriend's shoulder. "Oh."  
  
They were looking at Ling and John . . . kissing.  
  
"Am I the only one feeling the weirdness of this?" Bobby whispered.  
  
"C'mon, let's go in." Rogue said.  
  
"Wait." Bobby grabbed the covered part of Rogue's arm. "Don't you think they want to be alone?"  
  
"Well Ling did that water thing when WE were kissing." She retorted.  
  
"Yeah, but embarrass her some other time, ok? Ok." Bobby dragged Rogue to another location.  
  
"I'd much rather do this." Bobby swept in and gently kissed Rogue as long as he could. 


	16. Rooms and spying Rogues

Sorry I haven't updated in forever. I've been having writer's block with this story, and the lack of reviews, though I thank whoever did review! So . . . please review!  
  
* * *  
  
Ling enjoyed the kiss very much; it was like a happy tingly feeling.  
  
Afterwards, she was blushing a lot, and for a few precious moments, she snuggled next to John and closed her eyes for a moment, taking it all in.  
  
She wanted to stay like that forever, but eventually they had to get up and go find Bobby and Rogue.  
  
* * *  
  
They eventually found all the X-Men, including Bobby and Rogue, all walking around the kitchen and opening the cabinets trying to find something to eat. Some were already at the table and others looked hopelessly hungry.  
  
"Uh, guys?" Ling tried. But the busy buzz of the X-Men caused her to not be heard.  
  
"SHUT UP EVERYBODY!!!" Pyro yelled.  
  
Everyone became silent and glared at Pyro. And Nightcrawler, being shocked by John's yelling, bumped his head on a cabinet, only causing the cereal to come out. So in short, Nightcrawler's head got nice marshmallow decoration to go with the tattoos.  
  
"Okay, everyone find something you like and get in line, okay? Move people!" Ling ordered.  
  
Everyone mumbled as they followed her orders, but eventually, everyone got a satisfying dinner.  
  
* * *  
  
After dinner, Rogue took Ling aside.  
  
"So, looks like the supposedly girl-with-no-feelings has a secret boyfriend, huh?" Rogue asked, eyes glittering mischievously.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Ling said, her eyes averting around guiltily, looking for an exit.  
  
"I'm talking about you getting cozy with John."  
  
"You were spying?!" Ling hissed.  
  
"You two were gone, and me and Bobby were worried. So we went looking for you . . . and found you two kissing." Rogue explained sheepishly.  
  
Ling rolled her eyes. "Is nothing private in this world anymore. Of course, I wouldn't know . . . and country music IS really annoying . . ."  
  
Country music? Rogue raised an eyebrow. "Right. I suspected it before anyway, so it was only a matter of time."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
"So was that the first time you kissed him?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"C'mon, we're friends, you can tell."  
  
"Fine, fine! I kissed him once before," Ling admitted.  
  
"Ooh, when?" Rogue asked eagerly.  
  
"During the mission. At first it was only to trick the guards into thinking we weren't trespassers, and I was hurt and . . . and then he kissed me again even after they left. I didn't understand why at the time. I don't think I do now. Feelings are now confusing for me."  
  
Rogue nodded. "Yeah, I understand."  
  
* * *  
  
There were plenty of rooms, so the X-Men decided to stay overnight in the safe haven.  
  
There were enough rooms for everyone to have their own, but some preferred to bunk with someone, since each room was different. Some had those Queen or King sized beds for couples, some had single mattress beds for one person, and others had two twin sized beds in a room.  
  
Jean and Scott, obviously took the big beds, having much *cough* to catch up with. Storm, Wolverine, Professor Xavier, and Nightcrawler took the single beds. Rogue roomed with Bobby on the twin beds, and that left a very confused Ling to choose. Rogue winked at her as she went into her bedroom, which gave Rogue a glare back.  
  
"So . . . you get first 'dibs' on room." Ling informed John, trying out that new word that she heard Rogue say.  
  
"Ladies first." John said, grinning, seeing how obvious it was that Ling didn't want to choose.  
  
"Yeah, well that never ever applied to me, so let's not start now."  
  
So the excuse war began.  
  
"Well you SHOULD start now, since you're with the X-Men and all." John pointed out.  
  
"Well technically you're not with the X-Men yet, so those rules don't apply to you." Ling shot back.  
  
"Ouch, that hurt. You're good at this."  
  
"Flattery will get you nowhere. What room do you want? For god's sakes, pick all ready!"  
  
"Why don't you?"  
  
"This is really getting nowhere."  
  
"I think that's the point."  
  
So after more arguing, the two decided to get their own rooms. But unknown to them, a certain mutant couple were listening to them.  
  
"God, they're perfect for each other." Rogue whispered.  
  
"All I see is them fighting," Bobby observed.  
  
"Yeah, but they say that when people argue a lot and tease each other, they're actually hitting on each other." Rogue explained.  
  
"Rogue . . . that's gross."  
  
"How is that gross?"  
  
"Because you're basically saying that whenever me and John fight, he's hitting on me, which makes him gay, which means he can't like Ling cause he's gay- -"  
  
"Oh shut up Bobby."  
  
"Gladly."  
  
And Rogue could spy on her friends no further, due to the fact that Bobby and kissed her on the lips for a second, and then dragging her to her bed, telling her that they had heard enough from the two for one night.  
  
* * *  
  
Ling woke up groggily in the morning, yawning and stretching her arms out. It was possibly the best night of sleep she had ever had. She felt newly refreshed and ready for whatever came for her that day.  
  
So the X-Men had one breakfast, cleaned up the place, and then were on their way back home: to the Xavier mansion.  
  
Once they were there, Xavier let them rest up a little bit, but then he called in the team, including Rogue, Bobby, Ling, and John, to Logan's disapproval and worry.  
  
"They're too young!" Logan argued.  
  
"Logan, it was them who found the secret message." Professor Xavier pointed out. "And Ling is used to surviving, Logan; she can take care of the others. John has always been rebellious, and he has the power and instincts to take care of himself. Bobby and Rogue were more sheltered, but they take care of each other. Actually, Logan, I'd say this is an excellent group of new X-Men."  
  
"Ok, fine, whatever bub, but I'm still worried about John. How do we know we can trust him?"  
  
"I've read his mind. He seems to have come with us of his own free will, and not the will of Magneto. I think he's been wanting to come back for some time and see his friends, but there was another moving factor there." Professor Xavier said with a smile.  
  
"And what would that be?"  
  
"That's something that will remain untold until further notice."  
  
"Oh no, the Professor's getting a sense of humor."  
  
"Very funny Logan."  
  
"I know it is."  
  
"You wanted to see us Professor?" Rogue's voice came from a tiny crack in the door.  
  
"Yes, Rogue, I wanted to discuss with you four about what you found. I don't believe we've talked about it yet." Professor Xavier gestured for the four to sit down.  
  
"Fist of all, what did you find?" Scott asked.  
  
Ling took out the remote from her pocket and handed it to Scott. "It's a coded message of where the machine was. It was encrypted in Stryker's code, but I knew his simple method of codes, so I was able to decipher it."  
  
"What does it say?" Scott asked, confused at what looked like gibberish to him.  
  
"It says, 'Project Mutant Control is located at Florida Science Center.'"  
  
Shivers went down everyone's spine.  
  
"Project Mutant Control." Logan growled, "When will these government clowns stop all these stupid things?"  
  
"Probably never. There will always be evil people doing evil things to little ten year olds." Ling said, her voice suddenly dropping to an emotionless monotone.  
  
Logan nodded sadly, understanding what she meant. He of all people should know exactly what she was feeling, except she got it worse since she wasn't able to escape as Logan was able to.  
  
"Right, well, I suggest we go to the Science Center, then." Storm said, sighing.  
  
"But which one? There's gotta be more than one Science Center in Florida." Rogue pointed out.  
  
They all looked at Ling.  
  
Ling thought for a moment, digging deep into what memories she had and pieced pieces of the puzzle together.  
  
"The one in Orlando, Florida. That was the only place in Florida Stryker's ever been to." Ling said. "I'll bet it's there, at the largest one."  
  
"Well, boys and girls," Scott said, "I think we're all going to Florida." 


	17. Orlando Fun

Thanks to Sethoz and Obiwanfan for reviewing! Here's chapter . . . what? Seventeen? Can't remember. Please review. We're getting to the good part! Dun-dun-dun!  
  
* * *  
  
The Professor made the four teenagers wait outside while they made a final decision. They all waited in excitement as they waited for the adults to reach their decision. A few minutes later, Logan walked out, looking annoyed and defeated.  
  
"So are we going Logan? Are we, are we?" Rogue asked, almost like a little kid.  
  
"Does 'we're going to Florida' include us?" Bobby asked.  
  
"Or are we just the smart kids who find the stuff but doesn't go on the actual finding." Ling asked.  
  
"Yeah, unfortuanly, you're all going." Logan grumbled.  
  
"Yes!" Rogue high-fived Ling, a new concept Ling just learned. "We're going to Florida!"  
  
"What? Don't trust us, Logan?" Bobby teased. They had some male bonding moments over ice cream and pop at midnight. Logan was mostly in it for the instant cold sodas, although he would prefer a beer. But it's not his fault that the school doesn't have any beer!  
  
"No, I . . . well I don't really trust you and Rogue completely, but I trust you enough. It's him I don't trust." Logan said gruffly, glancing John's way.  
  
"Me?!" John exclaimed.  
  
"You're to go on the mission too, bub, so don't try anything or you'll feel these." Logan threatened, his admantium claws coming out.  
  
"Now, now, Logan." Professor Xavier warned as he wheeled out of his office. "Now, I trust you four to behave yourselves and concentrate on the mission. Maybe afterwards or before you can go to those theme parks and act like teenagers then." He said with a smile.  
  
"Yes!" This got whoops and cheers from everyone.  
  
"Quiet! There are still others sleeping." Professor Xavier reminded them. "Now, John where will you sleep . . .?"  
  
"There's room in my dorm." Bobby said before he even thought about what he was saying.  
  
John raised an eyebrow. He hadn't expected Bobby to just let him move back in.  
  
The Professor, however, seemed to be the opposite of surprised. "Alright then, Bobby, take John to his old room. The girls, stay behind, I'd like to discuss some of the mission to you."  
  
Ling and Rogue looked at each other, but Ling just shrugged.  
  
"Now, I do trust John's return, but even so, I want you two to be careful. And report to me or Logan of any suspicious behavior. Tell this to Bobby when you have the chance. Now, go get a good night's rest." With that they were dismissed.  
  
* * *  
  
The next day they were packed and off to Orlando, Florida!  
  
It would have been a long, boring five hour plane ride.  
  
Of course, that's provided they were using an airplane at an airport. But they took the Blackbird, which was faster, so they got there in three hours instead.  
  
"What's our cover, Professor?" Ling asked as they landed the Blackbird in a swamp.  
  
"Yeah, what's our cover from those very, very hungry looking alligators?!" Rogue squeaked, pointing at the green creatures climbing into the Blackbird from the open ramp.  
  
"Oh, that. Storm," Professor Xavier began.  
  
"On it, Professor." Storm shot low-voltage thunder bolts at the alligators, causing them to growl menacingly at the group, but backed off nonetheless. The ramp rose higher off the ground, to a height unreachable to the alligators. Then all of them crossed. Afterwards, the Professor closed off the ramp and made the Blackbird hide underneath the waters of the swamp.  
  
"What were you saying before, Ling?" The Professor asked.  
  
"What's our cover? Aren't we going undercover?" Ling asked as if it was the obvious thing.  
  
"We're just going as we are: A few specially selected students on a learning inspired field trip to Florida with a few of their professors. You four were the top science students in the school so we are rewarding you." The Professor explained.  
  
"Sounds about right . . . except for the whole 'best in science' part. I'm pretty sure right now I'm at the BOTTOM of the list . . ." Bobby said thoughtfully.  
  
"We'll be staying at a hotel near Universal Studios Florida . . ." The Professor continued, trailing off due to the happy squeals of the girls and the "Yeah!" of the boys.  
  
". . . and we will allow you to spend the rest of the day there and have fun, in order for the adults to get organized. Then you have to meet us back at the hotel. Is that understood?" Professor Xavier asked.  
  
"Yes sir!" The four chimed. As they were walking, Logan growled something in John's ear, "And if you try anything, bub, and either of them get hurt, you'll be personally dealing with ME."  
  
John gulped but nodded his head vigorously. Like he was going to try anything, especially not if he was threatened with those very painful looking daggers of Logan's.  
  
(A/N: I just went to Orlando for the summer and went to Universal Studios as well as get a tan, I'm hoping I can remember the rides and stuff . . . anyways on with the story . . .)  
  
* * *  
  
"Oh my god! We have to go on that ride, and see that and that . . ." Rogue exclaimed, pointing at practically everything. She was like a five year old little girl.  
  
Ling cocked her head to one side. "What about that ride over there?" Ling pointed to a ride with a very long line, "The one with the little green aliens and guys dressed up in black."  
  
John squinted at where his girlfriend (yes, GIRLFRIEND) was pointing at. "Oh, hey, that's the Men in Black ride . . . or game thing."  
  
"Men in Black?" Ling asked.  
  
"It's a movie, and they made a ride out of it." Bobby explained.  
  
"Oh." Ling said.  
  
Back to the girlfriend thing, when they were walking down the place, Rogue just sort of said bluntly, "Just ask her to be your girlfriend and get it over with already!"  
  
And to everyone, especially Ling's, surprise, John shrugged and said, "Fine." So he kissed her in front of Bobby and Rogue and said, "Wanna be my girlfriend?" And take a wild guess at Ling's answer. Needless to say, she was pretty excited about it. ^_^  
  
"Hurry up, you guys and get in line!" Rogue shouted while running over to save room for them in line.  
  
"Wait!" They ran after Rogue and got in line. After waiting in line for a while, they were able to go inside. They got "briefed" then went into the (yes!) cold air conditioned rooms. They went "down" the elevator and walked until reaching the place where everyone was boarding onto the transportation.  
  
Ling looked at them strangely (she's never been on a ride like that before) and asked, "What's the purpose of this?"  
  
"It's for fun, plus you get to brag when you beat Bobby's score." Rogue said casually.  
  
"What?" Bobby said, outraged.  
  
"Wait, it's our turn!" So, Rogue and Bobby went into the back row and John and Ling went into the front row. There was one more seat, so two single riders joined them. (They had a line especially for single riders)  
  
Ling picked up the ray gun and looked at it. She tried pressing the trigger at the wall. Nothing happened.  
  
"What piece of junk is this? It doesn't even work!" Ling said.  
  
"Wait, when it starts it'll work." John explained.  
  
Ling gasped as the vehicle suddenly lurched forward ungracefully and started to go around the turn. She tired shooting her ray gun again and red beams came out. She heard a man's voice distantly say, "-training system. Good luck new recruits!"  
  
Suddenly, cardboard aliens appeared out of nowhere. Ling began shooting their necks, the spot she was usually trained to aim for. Nothing was happening, but Ling saw the bright green numbers on John's counter increasing.  
  
"Shoot the eyes!" John said.  
  
"Oh. Right, I knew that." So Ling took his advice, and soon her own score was racking up.  
  
Soon, there was an "emergency" and apparently real aliens landed. So the cardboard figures changed to real-life looking figurines. You still had to shoot them in the eyes though.  
  
This went on and they were all becoming trigger-happy when a big ugly monster with numerous eyes appeared. They were about to go into its mouth! Then Ling remembered something she'd seen on the instruction movie. She pressed the red button on her gun and shot at one of the monster's eyes. Once they went inside the mouth the vehicle began spinning out of control!  
  
But as it was spinning, Ling noticed her counter had the numbers 10000 on it, and once they were done with the ride, Ling had a lot more points than anyone in the same car as her!  
  
"Oh man, it's her first time ever on a ride and she beat us all! How pathetic are we?" Bobby groaned.  
  
"Very." Rogue volunteered.  
  
"That was really fun!" Ling said.  
  
"What else did you expect?" John said with a laugh.  
  
For the rest of the day they had a lot more fun, and Ling was enjoying every aspect of this new freedom. She hadn't felt this much joy since . . . before she was taken by Stryker.  
  
After the day was over, they headed to the hotel, as promised. When they got there, they found the adults in a serious mood.  
  
"We've found the Science Center, we'll go there tomorrow."  
  
* * *  
  
Hi! Like? Hope so. If anyone ever goes to Orlando, I recommend the Men in Black ride and the Hulk Roller Coaster in Adventures Isle. Please review! 


	18. The Science Museum

Thanks obiwanfan and sethoz for reviewing . . . this story's gonna end soon after this little series of trouble . . . probably 3 or 4 chapters or so left? Anyways . . . review!  
  
* * *  
  
Ling twisted and turned in her sleep. She and Rogue had roomed together while the two boys were roommates. Ling couldn't go to sleep. She kept on having this weird feeling in her gut that something bad would happen tomorrow. She stared up at the darkness of her ceiling, wondering what could it be that was bugging her so much. Ling had gone through a lot . . . and had come a long way and even made friends like her . . .  
  
She dismissed as just nervous feelings. This was Stryker's contraption, she was probably just worried about bad memories it might bring.  
  
Ling cleared her mind and slowly she began to drift into sleep . . .  
  
* * *  
  
The next morning Ling and Rogue dressed in silence. They both knew how important this mission was, and how dangerous.  
  
They met up with the boys at breakfast and made strained conversation. It was hard to believe that yesterday they had been riding rides and having fun.  
  
The Professor had rented a car for them to take them there. Their alias was a class trip for the top four winners of the Science Fair (John made a gagging noise when he heard this) and that this was their prize.  
  
They entered the building's large opened doors and entered a room full of gizmos and inventions. This place was vaugly familiar to Ling . . . although she couldn't figure out why. When Stryker had been here, she had not come, and she couldn't remember ever coming here before in her past.  
  
A rush of cold air flung her silky black hair back.  
  
Air conditioning, she thought.  
  
They split up into two groups: the adults and the teens. They both went into opposite directions as to cover more ground. The problem is: they don't know what the machine looks like. But after more digging in Ling's mind, they discovered that the machine would start beeping to signal a mutant sighting. So, they basically had to walk near machines and see if it would beep as they passed.  
  
While the adults, being far more experienced and mature, did their search seriously, the teens were having trouble with Pyro.  
  
"Pleeeaase, you guys?" John begged.  
  
"It's tempting, but you know the Professor would kill us, AND our cover would be blown." Bobby said dryly.  
  
"Rogue?"  
  
"I'm with Bobby," Rogue said defiantly, determined not to look at John.  
  
"Ling?" John turned to his girlfriend.  
  
Ling shrugged. "I'd like to be there with you, but we would get kicked out and maybe get the police called on us. So even though that girl was making fun of mutants, doesn't mean you have to set her hair on fire."  
  
John crossed his arms to his chest and pouted. "Fine! Ruin my fun!"  
  
Rogue grabbed John's ear and yanked him.  
  
"Ow!"  
  
Ling and Bobby glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.  
  
"Shouldn't that be you?" Bobby wondered.  
  
"Nope, Rogue's powers will calm him down." Ling replied.  
  
Sure enough, John had calmed down a lot due to the aftereffects of Rogue's power.  
  
So they walked along, their ears peeled for a beeping sound. After maybe five minutes of walking, Bobby stopped abruptly.  
  
"What is it?" Rogue whispered.  
  
"People are looking at us weird . . . just with us walking around people are starting to get suspicious." Bobby hissed.  
  
"Since when was it a law that walking was a bad thing?" John asked sarcastically.  
  
"I think they're security guards who are supposed to spot mutants," Ling hissed, "I've seen this type of things before. We're definitely in the right place for the machine."  
  
"So what do we do?" Rogue asked.  
  
"How about we actually do something . . . like that fake DNA tester thing over there?" John suggested.  
  
The remaining three looked over to where he was pointing at. They nodded their head in agreement.  
  
So the three of them put their finger on the plate. Ling thought it was an innocent learning tool . . . until she felt the familiar feeling of a needle poking into her skin. On the T.V. it said that the needle feeling was just something to make it seem more real . . . but the bad feeling Ling had was coming back . . .  
  
Ling immediately withdrew her hand from the hole. She glanced at the television set above her head and saw it "explaining" the DNA with supposedly none of her DNA. But as she glanced over at another person's T.V., his DNA looked different. Hers had a lot more strings and shapes around it.  
  
Danger warnings flashed in her mind.  
  
She ran and called each of her friends by turn. They came over, looking confused.  
  
"Did you find anything?" John asked.  
  
"Maybe, but we have to keep on looking for that thing!" Ling insisted. So they split up into two groups and walked past each invention quickly.  
  
After scanning machine after machine, Ling stopped abruptly. Her heart was pounding, and her mind told her it could not be. But her heart said it was.  
  
"What is it?" John asked.  
  
"It's . . . it's the invention my father was working on . . ." Ling said softly.  
  
"Really? What's it do?"  
  
Ling racked her mind, but at first it came out as a blank. "I . . . I can't remember . . ." But then, a shot of pain rushed to her head as she strained to remember. Colored flashes ran through her head . . .  
  
"Hand me that, will you, honey?" A man in his mid-thirties asked. A little Asian girl with big brown eyes handed him a wrench from a red tool box . . .  
  
. . . She had found a ventilator and was curious by it. She crawled inside the huge shaft and explored it. Suddenly, she heard the familiar warm voice below her. She peered through the slits in the shaft, listening to her father's phone conversation.  
  
". . . yes, it's almost ready . . . I cannot guarantee you that it will detect mutants, though . . . how? By their DNA . . . sorry sir, I know you don't need a science lesson on this . . . I advise you to try it out first . . ."  
  
Suddenly, the pain was gone. Ling could think clearly now. She could see the worried eyes of her boyfriend, the one with the power opposite hers.  
  
Ling walked around her father's invention, looking for that one specific detail that only the one her father had been making had . . .  
  
She found the spot, not daring to run a long finger across its cold steel surface. Her eyes widened as she did not see her father's insignia on the machine. Ling herself had seen him put it on, yet it was not there. That could only mean . . . this one on display is a fake, and the one with the DNA on the T.V. screens . . . contained her father's REAL machine. Which means . . . their secret is found out!  
  
Ling grabbed John's hand and practically dragged him over to find Bobby and Rogue.  
  
"Where's the fire? Did you find it?" Rouge asked.  
  
"Where are the Professor and the others? We have to get out of here!" Ling panted.  
  
"Why?" Bobby asked, confused.  
  
"That DNA tester! It's actually my dad's invention for using DNA for finding out who's a mutant or not! We were all tested! We have to get out!" She informed them impatiently.  
  
"Crap." John muttered.  
  
"Okay, let's gooooooo!" Rogue screamed as the ground opened up beneath her.  
  
Ling also felt the unpleasant feeling of having no ground to support her. Before she went completely under, she noticed John and Bobby falling out of the corner of her eye. How can the regular people not notice four teenagers disappearing into the ground?  
  
Terror gripped her heart as she slid down to who-knows-where. She landed with a hard bump onto cold concrete ground.  
  
"Ow . . . my butt hurts . . ." She muttered to herself.  
  
Ling heard a distant deep screaming as a hole opened up above her and Iceman came crashing down onto her.  
  
"Bobby?" Her muffled voice was barely audible.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Get off me."  
  
Bobby scrambled off her and apologized.  
  
"Don't apologize to me; apologize to the body parts you broke." Ling muttered angrily, rubbing her aching shoulder.  
  
"Did I mention I was sorry? Plus the fact I didn't get to choose where I would fall." Bobby added in mock meekness.  
  
"Where's Rogue and John?" Ling asked, looking around for any more last second hole openings.  
  
"Probably somewhere else together . . . or apart." Bobby said with a shrug.  
  
But there was no time for any more discussion on that because their blood literally froze at the sound of the clicking of guns behind them. 


	19. Obstacles

Yay! 4 more reviews! Thanks everyone! Ok . . . let's see how Ling and Bobby get themselves out of this mess . . . not to mention John and Rogue . . .  
  
* * *  
  
"Bobby? You heard that?" Ling hissed.  
  
"Yeah." Bobby glanced nervously over his shoulder for a moment. His head snapped back.  
  
"What is it?" Ling asked, not daring to turn around and check for herself.  
  
"Guns. Aiming right at us!" Bobby whispered. Ling could feel the fear radiating from him. Ling, however, was only slightly nervous. She's been in this kind of situation before many times, but always with Lady Deathstrike. She didn't know if Bobby could pull himself together to help her take the guns out.  
  
"How many men?" Ling asked.  
  
"There are no men," Bobby responded, "It's only guns hanging from the ceiling!"  
  
"Good. Then you won't have to feel guilty killing someone, then." Ling said calmly. "I'll take the ones on the right, and you take the left. Be ready to back each other up if we get into a tight spot, okay?"  
  
"Right."  
  
"NOW!"  
  
Ling did a backwards hand stance, and as she suspected, the guns reacted to movement. She went under one and blasted it with water, sparks flying off it. The adrenaline pumping through her, she moved from spot to spot, finally able to make one full blast to the entire row of guns. She twisted her head to the left to see how Bobby was doing and was pleased to see that he was doing just fine. He had managed to freeze all the cameras without getting shot!  
  
"Good job!" Ling said with a smile.  
  
"Why are you smiling? How can you smile?" Bobby demanded.  
  
Ling shrugged. "I like action, I practically was force fed it. C'mon, let's go. We have to find John and Rouge, I'm sure they fell down some other hole too."  
  
Bobby nodded and the two took off running through an open hole.  
  
Ling had not voiced her fears openly. This was all too well organized. If they knew they were mutants and wanted to capture them, why not just do so? Why bother hitting them with cameras and then leaving a big open space for them to go? This felt too much like a test. Someone, whoever the puppet master is, is testing them for some bizarre reason.  
  
They ran and ran until they reached a dead end.  
  
"Did we miss a turn or what?" Bobby fumed, kicking the wall with his foot. "We have to find Rogue!"  
  
Ling could feel the frustration rising up inside her as well. Where's John when you need him?  
  
* * *  
  
"John! Wake up!"  
  
"Ah!" Pyro sat up suddenly, knocking heads with Rouge.  
  
"Watch it!" Rogue complained, rubbing her head and glaring at Pyro.  
  
"Hey! You're the one that's yelling into my ear." John retorted. "Where's my Zippo?" He stuck his hand in his pocket, searching for his lighter. Ah. It's still in there. He took it out and started his "annoying" habit of clicking his lighter.  
  
Click. "Did you see if Bobby and Ling fell down a hole too?" Rogue asked. Click. Click.  
  
Click. "I saw them both fall down one hole. They're probably together. I have a feeling we're in pairs for a reason." Click.  
  
"What makes you think that?" Rogue asked. Click.  
  
"Well, they could have sent in cops and taken us instead of making us fall down holes. Who knows?" Click.  
  
"Well, then we'd better find them and get out of here fast!" Rogue urged.  
  
Click. "Let's go."  
  
They walked into an open corridor. It looked like a long way to walk. So they continued to go until they finally reached the end of the corridor. There was a big wooden door at the end. Rouge tried to open it, but it was locked. John tried kicking it open.  
  
"It always works in the movies," John complained in dismay. "Guess it's time to do it the Pyro way."  
  
John took out his beloved Zippo lighter again and clicked it open. The flame danced around in the air a bit before enlarging and attacking the door. Soon the door was nothing but a mound of ash on the ground.  
  
"That works too," Rogue said, impressed.  
  
"C'mon." John told Rogue and walked on the ash that had been the door.  
  
They walked through the door into . . . a swimming pool?  
  
"Okay, secret underground facilities I can handle, but secret underground swimming pools?" Rogue said.  
  
John, however, just fidgeted nervously and stared at the water.  
  
Rogue followed his gaze. "Oh yeah, you're afraid of water, aren't you?"  
  
"No." John denied.  
  
Rogue rolled her eyes. "It's okay."  
  
"No." John repeated, his macho side prevailing.  
  
"Suit yourself."  
  
The swimming pool covered the entire length of the room to a door on the other side. There was no land for John to walk on.  
  
"C'mon, Pyro," Rogue said, stepping into the water, "It's easy."  
  
"Rogue!" John whined.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I can't swim all that well!" John informed her stubbornly.  
  
"Well, I can." Rogue replied.  
  
"What good does that do me?" Pyro demanded.  
  
Before John knew what she was doing, Rogue had taken off her glove and touched him on the forehead for a second, concentrating hard on swimming.  
  
Then, Rogue pushed John in. John's arms flailed and he yelled as he fell in. At first he didn't come up and Rouge began to worry. What if it didn't work?  
  
Suddenly, a hand grabbed Rogue's ankle and tossed her into the water.  
  
"Hey!" Rouge spluttered, now completely wet and glaring at a grinning John. "What'd you do that for?"  
  
"Only doing what you did to me!" John said. "I'll race you!" And then he started off swimming to the other side.  
  
Rogue stared at him in disbelief. Wasn't this the same Pyro who was afraid to even be ten feet NEAR water? Maybe her power worked a little TOO well!  
  
Rogue sighed and swam after him. They reached the edge and John opened the door. But instead of land, a monsoon of water splashed onto them both, and the room started to fill up with water. Fear struck both of their hearts and they swam to the surface of it all. But the water was rising up on them, and who knows how long they could hold their breath?  
  
* * *  
  
After much more searching, Bobby and Ling finally found a door. Cautiously, Ling opened it, Bobby's hand at ready to freeze whatever came out. Nothing came out.  
  
Ling stepped onto a platform, only to see a raft in front of her, and raging water currents.  
  
"Oh . . . my god." Ling said.  
  
Bobby had stepped from behind her and said, "Let's do it."  
  
"What?!" Ling exclaimed. "This is clearly a trap!"  
  
"Yeah, but where else can we go? We might as well go and see who it leads to."  
  
"Or what." Ling muttered. "Fine."  
  
They stepped onto the raft, and Bobby froze the rope tying it to the dock. Then he karate-chopped it and suddenly the raft lunged forward. Water sprayed into the boat so that neither of them could see.  
  
"Ling!" Bobby gasped out, spitting water from his mouth. "Can you control the water?"  
  
Ling concentrated, and suddenly all the water pushed itself onto the sides of the wall, so they were sliding down a slick road.  
  
But as they neared the end, a giant stab of pain exploded in Ling's skull.  
  
"Not now!" She groaned and held her head. But her concentration was distracted, and the water came crashing down onto them, threatening to bury them in its wake.  
  
"Dammit!" Bobby swore and he shot ice out of both hands, freezing the water that would have crashed into them into solid ice. Then he froze everything in front of them so they slid down the ice lake. Bobby glanced in worry at Ling, who was still yelling in pain.  
  
But then he looked ahead of them and swore again. He pushed Ling down and covered his own head. The raft shattered through the wall and floated into a room full of water. The water spilled onto the room Bobby and Ling had come from. Suddenly, two figures almost got sucked into the other room, but Bobby grabbed onto both of them and held them into the raft. They were able to withstand the current.  
  
Soon all the water was leveled and calm. Ling was shaking, and Rogue and John were both coughing. Bobby was trying to move the raft over to the door where the water had fell onto Rogue and John.  
  
John saw his girlfriend and shook her. "Ling!"  
  
Ling glared at him and said, "What took you so long to find us?!" But then she smiled slightly.  
  
"It was more like we found them," Bobby corrected.  
  
"And saved our asses!" Rogue added. "Someone's really trying to kill us. But then again, people try to kill us practically every day, so this is nothing."  
  
"What happened to you back there, Ling?" Bobby asked.  
  
"It was like one of the serum mutations except . . . I didn't get controlled. I don't understand why." Ling was confused.  
  
"Maybe you fought it off like last time," John suggested.  
  
Ling shook her head. "No, it was more like it was meant to distract me, not to control me. I don't know . . . all the obstacles . . . I think it's more of a test than someone trying to kill us."  
  
They all got off the raft and peeked through the door. A solitary iron door stood at the end of the hallway.  
  
Wet and grumpy, the four strode to the door.  
  
"Whoever put us through this is going to have hell to pay!" John growled. "I'm going to melt the door down."  
  
"Wait!" Ling put an arm in her boyfriend's way.  
  
She put her hand on the door handle and pulled it open.  
  
"But it would have been more fun if I melted it," John muttered.  
  
They began to file into it when a man in a white lab coat turned around. He stared at Ling for a moment, and then smiled slightly.  
  
"Welcome back Aqua . . . Ling."  
  
Ling stopped dead in her tracks. She stared at the man in disbelief. When she finally spoke, it was in a broken voice.  
  
"D-Dad?" 


	20. Trapt

Hey! Thanks for the reviews, you guys. By the way, this is going to be the last chapter. An even twenty. I don't think I mentioned it in the last chapter but oh well.

Now here's some bad self-promotion: If you liked this story, please go read my other X-Men stories: _Nothing Is Set In Stone_, which is completed, and its sequel, _Devil's Bargain._ You don't have to read its predecessor to understand _Devil's Bargain_, so go on! Read it!

Also, I realize that Ling is or is very similar to a Mary Sue, being paired with Pyro and everything. My only defense is that this was my first story and I didn't know what a Mary Sue was. And since this is the last chapter, she will stay the way she is. So there! Anyway, enough of my ranting.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything except Ling and the plot.

Special thanks to: Obiwanfan and Sethoz. Thanks for sticking with this story and reviewing! It means a lot, since I don't have that many reviews for this story. But that's okay. I had fun writing this story, so that's all that matters.

Thanks to (sorry if I forget anybody): crazy4horses, x2lover, highlitergrl, Pyrotic, laura mulwray, Starkeeper, mickEMousina, Khetala, zcjm72, madnuninblue, Kellie, ginger, chibi minamoto, Kayleigh-talitha, and ???Guesswho??? .

Anyway, on with the finale!

* * *

"Dad?" John questioned, glancing at Ling. She did not answer him. She didn't notice her boyfriend was talking. A shocked expression seemed to be permanently etched across her face.

But her father did not say anything. Instead, another man in a lab coat stepped in front of him. He had huge, thick glasses and was unshaven. There were heavy bags under his eyes. His eyes seemed oversized because of the glasses, and they were staring unblinkingly at Ling.

Ling stared right back at the man, and as she stared into his cold, malicious eyes, she felt a shudder pulse through her body. Something about that man was so familiar . . . and it repulsed her and filled her with a sense of dread.

But she felt a warm and sweaty palm connect with hers. Ling broke eye contact with the man and looked at John, managing a small smile.

Suddenly, as the man began to speak, his voice triggered a drowned memory . . . a memory buried when she became drunk with Stryker's serum . . . a memory she had wanted to forget. But yet it was the key to her past.

_Screams could be heard downstairs. Alarmed, Ling rushed downstairs in time to see a bullet fly from the doorway to connect with her mother's forehead. She fell to the ground, blood seeping through the back of her head, a blank, dead look in her eyes. Ling put a hand on her mouth to stop from screaming, but it couldn't muffle it. Horror filled her eyes as she saw the men turn her way. _

_Water flew from the faucet to hit the men on the chest, but her powers hadn't advanced far enough to do much difference. The weak blast just made him wet. Panic and shock paralyzed her for a moment before her body was mobile again. She ran as fast as she could to her room and locked the door, shoving anything she could in the doorway. _

_But then she realized that she was stuck. She was on the second story with nowhere to run. Her mother was dead . . . who knew what had happened to her father?_

_Suddenly, she saw the doorknob rattle and turn. There was a frustrated kick to the door. Ling stayed at the very edge of her room,absolutely terrified. Suddenly, she realized that she should just climb out the window. There was a drain pipe near her room; she could escape that way._

_But as she began to open the window, Ling cried out as a bullet narrowly missed her hands. Ling ducked and dove to the side of her bed. She held her hands on her hands, wising desperately to drown out the sound of the bullets pushing through her door-the last barrier from her mother's murderers. _

_Suddenly, she heard the door being kicked open. It was over. Soon she would just be another dead body on the floor, her own blood surrounding her, her eyes staring at her ceiling until someone came to put her in a body bag. _

_Ling closed her eyes shut, wishing and praying with all her might that this was all a dream. _

_But it wasn't. _

_The men came. Ling expected death to come, but instead she was being dragged into a large van, kicking and screaming. Except nobody could hear her cries. Her mouth was painfully gagged with a handkerchief, and she had been stuffed into a small wooden box. Ling could breathe at all. They had created one single air hole, but it wasn't enough. The box was too small. _

_Ling's claustrophobia had kicked in and she desperately tried to kick the box open. But desperation did not give her more power; it just drained whatever strength she still possessed. _

_Her head banged on the hard wood as she felt the box drop. Then, there was rough movement from beneath her as she felt the vibrations of a moving car. Ling felt her head hit the floor as the crate of the box was opened. She winced as she was roughly pulled from the box by her long ebony hair. _

_A man with huge muscles and an expression of repulsion on his face let go of her hair. He coldly and emotionlessly pulled a long, sharp needle from a small black bag. Ling's eyes widened with fear at the sight of the needle. She began to squirm and tried to crawl away, only to be pulled back. The man roughly pulled out her arm and stuck the needle into her. She winced as she felt the connection of needle to flesh. And it all went black._

* * *

_When Ling woke up, she found herself surrounded in a cold, metallic, and unfriendly room. Someone was holding onto her arms, twisting it painfully behind her back. A man with huge glasses in a white lab coat stood slightly behind a large older man. He wore spectacles, and a small tight smile could be distinguished through his white beard. _

"_Give me the embedder and the serum, Trapt," The older man ordered coldly._

_The other man fumbled a bit in his white lab coat and pulled out a metal cylinder of some sort. It looked like lipstick could be inside. The older man looked at him questionably._

"_Where's the serum?"_

"_I think I know." He indicated to a guard, and he swiftly left. _

_All the while, Ling was watching all this with horror and fear. She couldn't help but stare at the metal cylinder in the hands of this emotionless man. Ling turned her head to the sound of the door sliding open._

_Ling gasped in surprise as she recognized the man quietly following the guard. The guard had a tube of greenish liquid in his hand. The man's black hair was untidy, and his face was unshaven. Premature wrinkles hid his usually loving and youthful energy. Her dad stood next to the guard and stared into space with empty eyes._

"_Daddy!" She cried out, "Help me!"_

_He did not answer. But at the familiarity of her voice, his eyes blinked rapidly, and he managed to ask, "Ling?" in a confused voice before his head was pushed over and a drop of the green liquid landed on the back of his neck. Then he stood back up and resumed the cold, stiff position he had before._

_Ling was confused. What was happening? Trapt, the man in the white lab coat, handed the tube to the other man._

"_Here, Mr. Stryker."_

"_Thank you," Stryker turned his attention to Ling. He advanced towards her. Ling could feel her body shuddering at the thought of what was about to happen._

"_Please! Let me go!" She pleaded, "I haven't done anything wrong! I don't even know you! Please!"_

_Stryker stopped cold at her desperate words. He started to laugh, a bitter, cold laugh full of pain and bitterness. "You've done nothing? Just by being born, you have infected our world. Plagued us. A mutant is what you are. Nothing but an error in your genes. You're killing us, you killed my wife!" He raged._

"_You're wife? But I don't know you . . ." Ling whispered weakly. Tears began to spring in her eyes. _

_He roughly pushed her head over. Tears flowed down her cheeks and hit the floor. _

"_I'm too young to die . . ." She pleaded again, but Stryker was deaf to the young girl's words. He opened the metal cylinder, and soft steam hissed from it. He pressed it onto the back of Ling's neck, causing her to cry out as she felt a painful burning sensation. Then she felt a soft, cool liquid touch her burnt skin. She felt it being absorbed. _

_Ling stood up. She struggled to move, struggled to speak. Then she began to walk, though she had not wanted to move. Ling willed herself to stop, willed herself to do anything voluntarily. But her body was no longer hers to command._

_That's when she realized: Ling wasn't dead. But she seems to have landed in a hell on Earth._

Ling stared at the man she knew of now as Trapt with such hatred blazing in her eyes. She felt her hands being tightly clenched in anger. Then she realized that she was crushing John's hand. She let go of some of the pressure. (A/N: Yes I realize that "Trapt" is the name of a rock band, but I hate making up names so I borrowed theirs. Plus I think it kind of works, so . . . yeah.)

"It's unfortunate that you've been freed. At least under William Stryker, you were doing humanity some good," Trapt said, his voice sounding as if it hadn't been used in a while. "We'd almost washed you of your tainted existence and made it useful but now . . . how dare you join with these other mutants to work against us?"

"Wow . . . it really sounds like you're the one that's been brainwashed instead of me!" Ling burst out angrily, her teeth gritted. "You've put me, Yuriko, my father, and whoever else through hell! Do you want to know what it's like to be trapped in your own body, unable to do anything? I'll kill you!" Ling moved forward, her eyes menacing, slapping John and Bobby's restraining arms away.

Suddenly, she felt a familiar painful sensation in the back of her neck again, and her knees fell to the ground, one hand supporting herself, and the other clutching her head. Her head felt like it had been split in half.

Thinking quickly, Bobby noticed that behind the guy making the annoying "I hate mutants" speech, Ling's dad was pressing some kind of device. He ran to the side so he could get a good shot, and aimed an icicle at her father's hand. It struck true into his hand, causing him to drop the device, but he did not cry out in pain. His face still showed no emotion.

Trapt smiled. "You see, all that time of isolation has caused me to discover one thing . . . the trigger for the serum, even if you didn't get a daily dosage. Pain is the trigger. By using that device that your friend just destroyed, I can activate it . . . and you can finish your job. So these . . . mutations of yours . . . they're all thanks to me. Unfortunally, you were always in the company of those _X-Men_ . . . so you couldn't fulfill your job without them interfering."

Ling got up, swaying slightly.

"You okay?" Rogue asked, her eyes darting around in alarm.

"What is it?" John asked.

Rogue pointed to the corners of the room. Many bright yellow "eyes" stared out at them. Slowly, mechanical creaking could be heard as huge humanoid robots emerged from the shadows.

"Crap." John commented.

Suddenly, she sensed something behind her. Ling turned around in time to see the same robots swing a hard metallic arm at her head, knocking her unconscious.

* * *

Rogue woke up with a splitting headache. Her hands were sore. She tried to move, but was pulled back with the sound of clicking chains. That's when she realized that she was handcuffed and chained to the wall. Then she saw that Ling was already awake, and glaring at Trapt, who was attending to one of his robots.

"Where are Bobby and John?" Rogue hissed to Ling.

Ling sighed. "I don't know. I didn't wake up soon enough. I'm getting lazy . . . I should have sensed the robots behind us."

"Well, none of us did," Rogue said.

"Well I'm supposed to be the trained assassin." Ling muttered.

Rogue stared at her. "Being a bit dramatic, aren't you?"

"It's this place," Ling explained.

"Right. So what do we do?"

Ling sighed. "We wait."

Trapt didn't talk to them. He merely worked on his robots, occasionally muttering to himself. Ling's father stood stiffly in the same spot, the blood from Bobby's icicle wound running freely down his hand, drops of red splattering the floor.

"Won't you at least bandage his hand?" Ling spoke up finally.

Trapt did not look up from his robot. "No."

"But it's going to get infected!" She protested.

"I could always make him a new hand," Trapt replied distractedly.

Rogue grimaced. This was gross. She was really beginning to worry about Bobby . . . at least she knew where she was. What if . . . what if he's dead? Did they maybe escape, and that's why this man isn't saying anything about them?

"Ling . . . who is this guy anyway?" Rogue whispered.

"His name's Trapt. He was one of the leading scientists on Stryker's team. He helped make the serum that Stryker used. I guess he wasn't at Alkali Lake when everyone else was killed."

Rogue was about to answer when Trapt's creaky voice filled the air.

"Go get them."

Ling's dad walked away into the darkness, his hand still bleeding freely. A few moments later, he emerged with a very quiet and stiff Bobby and John.

"Bobby!" Rogue cried out.

But Ling sensed something was wrong. "What are they doing?"

As they emerged from the darkness, Rogue and Ling let out gasps of alarm when they caught sight of their eyes. John's had turned from brown to blue, and Bobby's soft eyes had become hard and cold.

"Damn," Rogue cursed under her breath. There goes her dream of escape. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of water.

Ling had manipulated the water from a glass cup and tried to put it into her hands. But it never made it that far. It stopped as it hit some sort of an invisible shield and fell to the ground uselessly. Then she tried to turn herself into liquid. The rest of her body turned, but her arms didn't, and something from the chain shocked her. She was forced to become solid again.

Trapt shook his head. "You forget I know all your abilities. In fact, that wasn't an original ability of yours. I gave it to you. So I know how to block it." He sat down in his beaten swivel chair. "I haven't seen a mutant fight another mutant in a while. So these two are going to provide me with some entertainment. I deserve it."

"Very sure of himself, isn't he?" Rogue muttered to Ling, who nodded.

"That's what made him so sadistic," Ling answered.

Rogue looked worried. "How are we going to get out of here?" She whispered.

Ling looked into Rogue's eyes very seriously. "_You_ are going to get us out of here."

Rogue gulped and looked at Ling. "Me? My powers are blocked! How can I help?"

But Ling shook her head. "_My _powers are blocked. Trust me, he doesn't have the technology. Trapt's bluffing. Remember, he thinks we're inferior and really stupid. He doesn't know anything about you. If you can get close enough to John to touch him, then you can melt the chains."

"Oh." Rogue glanced at Trapt to make sure he wasn't paying attention to them before answering, "How do we get him close to me?"

"Easy. When they fight, John's fire will melt Bobby's ice, which will turn into water. I can still manipulate it. I'll use it to push John towards you, and all you have to do is touch him. Let him go back into the fight. Once he uses whatever fire source he needs, use it to melt your chains, and then mine."

"What about them?" Rogue indicated the boys with her head, "How do we get them out?"

Ling hesitated. "I don't know. I haven't thought that far."

Rouge grimaced. "I guess we'll have to make it up as we go along."

Their planning was interrupted when Rouge screamed and ducked quickly, a sharp icicle colliding into the wall where her head had just been.

Fire and ice shot everywhere, often narrowly missing the two girls by inches. There was a broken robot sitting in the corner, smoke and sparks flying out randomly. John had used the tiniest flame to attack Bobby. Trapt sat in his beaten swivel chair, watching the display. The light of the fire and the frost from the ice reflected on his glasses, giving him an even more haunted look.

The way that John and Bobby fought wasn't how Ling had remembered fighting. Their movements were slow, almost sluggish. The mechanical way they threw their powers at each other showed lack of interest or lack of the blood drive that she remembered feeling.

Obviously Trapt has gotten lazy over the years.

Rogue waited impatiently, stamping her feet on the floor while she watched helplessly as they fought. Actually, watching them was extremely boring. There was no intensity whatsoever.

Finally, a puddle of water began to form on the floor. Rogue was the one to notice it and she nudged Ling's foot. Once she got her attention, she nodded her head towards the puddle.

Using her powers, Ling pushed John towards Rogue. His shoulder was going to hit Rogue's hand, except a bubble around the shackle merely shocked him.

"Little snag in the plan, isn't there?" Rogue commented dryly.

Ling shrugged her shoulders. "Can't help it."

Suddenly, Rogue had an idea.

"Hold John down," Rogue told Ling. She nodded and kept him down with the water. Even while on the ground, John was still mechanically throwing fireballs at Bobby. Ling threw a glance at Trapt. He was still sitting in his chair, staring at the fight. But he didn't seem to notice Ling using her powers. His eyes were glazed, and it seemed like he was deep in thought.

Using her other foot, she was able to take off one of her shoes. With a little more difficulty, she succeeded doing that with her socks too. Then, using her feet, she touched John's face.

"Sorry," She apologized to John, knowing how pissed he would be if he was conscious of what was happening.

Rogue gasped as she felt that amazing sense of power as she stole John's life force and his powers. She began to see the deep veins on John's face and on her foot. In the distance, she thought she could hear a girl's voice calling to her . . . but the absorbing feeling was too intoxicating.

Suddenly, she felt moisture all over her face. Rogue awoke with a start and immediately took her foot away from John. He lay there, still as a stone. But that didn't stop Bobby from coming at him again. On instinct, Rogue outstretched her hands as if her bare fingers would stop the blow.

Instead, fire shot from the same smoking robot circuit and melted the ice. Keeping an eye on Trapt and Bobby, Rogue began working on her shackles. After a few minutes, the shackles fell to the floor. Rogue was amazed that she was able to protect John and work on freeing herself without Trapt realizing what they were doing.

After taking turns of melting Ling's bonds and melting Bobby's icicles, both were free. Ling knelt down on the floor next to the unconscious John. He was out cold. Rogue wondered what Ling was going to try to do.

Ling slapped John's face with a loud smack! He stirred, but he didn't wake up. Ling stared at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Then she sighed, resigning to her next attempt. She slapped him with all her might.

John woke up instantly, crying out in pain, his cheek throbbing. He threw Ling a furious glare. "Did you have to do that?"

But she merely shrugged and outstretched her hand to help him up. Reluctantly, he accepted her hand, one hand still clutching his stinging cheek.

The firestarter noticed Bobby's blank eyes and tried to wake him up with fire. _This should be interesting. _He thought. John's eyebrows furrowed in confusion when he didn't see a trace of fire. Then he stared at his previous source and realized that there weren't any more sparks flying from the robot.

"We're screwed." John commented grimly.

Bobby threw another icicle, which they easily ducked.

"He made us fight like this?" John complained, "This is no fun." But his casual comment was only a mask of what he really felt. In fact, John would rather forget the whole thing, that feeling of suffocation and helplessness. Pyro has never been one to ask for help, and he liked to be in control. But then, he didn't even get to decide where his body moved.

He looked up in time to see Rogue moving towards her boyfriend. As another icicle slowly formed in his hand, she grabbed his body towards her and kissed him passionately.

Immediately veins started appearing on both of them. But this time Rogue was ready and ignored the rush. She let go of Bobby earlier than she had let go of John, and he crumpled to the floor. Rogue poked Bobby's side with her foot gingerly, and saw him stir.

_Well, at least we won't have to wait for him to wake up,_ She thought.

Rogue winced when she saw pain reflecting in Bobby's eyes.

"Uh . . ." Bobby pointed at Trapt, whose eyes were still vacant, "Does he usually sleep with his eyes open?"

John stared at Bobby in disbelief. "Who _cares?_ Let's just go!"

But out of the corner of his eye, Bobby saw Trapt's finger reaching for a button on the control panel. He quickly send a piece of ice Trapt's way, but he wasn't fast enough. Trapt's finger connected with the button, and the robots began forming in a line.

On the large computer screen behind them read "Self Destruct System Activated".

"Are you kidding me?" Bobby gasped in horror.

Ling wheeled to face Trapt. "Are you crazy?"

The man smiled. "No. I've been down here to long. There's no point to remain here with no real purpose. So now I'm going to take care of you . . . and any other mutants on the surface."

"But . . . but there are _people_ up there! Non-mutants!" Rogue exclaimed.

"All martyrs for a greater cause."

John groaned. "Damn. We can't just leave now can we?"

Trapt then started laughing. Angrily, Bobby began to advance towards the computer controls, only to have the robots send him flying.

"Smart, Bobby." John smirked.

Bobby glared.

John looked around. "I need some firepower." Then, a mischievous smile settled across his face. "Bobby, I need you to go blow up some robots!"

_Damn it, John, we don't have time for games! _Bobby thought. But he knew that if he tried to freeze over the computer with his ice, the robots would just do something to mess his attack up, like before. Iceman sighed and sent some icicles rapidly at the center of each robot. The machines tried to block them, but the multiple attacks got them in the end. It blew up in fire and smoke.

Grinning, John took the fire and sent it at Trapt with an almost maniacal glee in his eyes.

Trapt screamed as the fires licked at his skin. His huge glasses fell to the floor, only to have its delicate glass to be crushed under Trapt's frantic feet. The man was screaming in agony. As Ling watched Trapt roll on the floor in an attempt to dim the flames, the conscience that she had recently regained had disappeared. She smiled in satisfaction as she watched the man suffer a slow death.

But it wasn't enough. Creating a strong water blast to separate the two stupid machines blocking her way, she passed her non responsive father to stand in front of Trapt. Then, using her powers, she doused the flames.

"What are you doing?" Rogue demanded, "Come help us!" She and John were both setting everything they could on fire while Bobby took care of the robots. But they didn't know how to shut the computer down.

Ling was deaf to their frustration. All there was in front of her was the prey. One more job to take care of. She relished the satisfaction of seeing Trapt's horrified and fearful eyes staring upon her merciless expression.

She put her hand over his mouth and let the water fill up his mouth and throat. He began to shudder, gagging and struggling. Ling pressed her hand harder onto his mouth. He began to flail, his eyes bulging and turning upwards. Trapt's entire body was shuddering as if he was having a seizure.

But Ling's concentration was shattered when a burst of fire flashed in front of her face. Surprised, she stepped backwards, releasing her grip. Trapt vomited the water in his mouth, and then fell the ground, clutching his throat.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Rogue raged. "We don't have time for this!"

Ashamed at her loss of control, Ling looked down at her feet.

"Damn it!" John cursed. "It's still going."

"Then protect the upper area."

Bobby turned around. "What?"

"You can activate the steel barriers so that when this place is blown up, it willprotect those above ground." It was Ling's father.

Ling gaped, filled with emotions she couldn't quite place. Amazement, shock, joy, uncertainty . . .

"Do you know how to do that?" John demanded.

"Yes."

"Then do it!"

Ling's father strode over to the sparking controls. His hands hovered over them for a moment, then began working. Despite the loud crackling of fire in the room, they could hear loud metal sounds above them.

"It's done."

Rogue frantically looked around. "Is there a way out though?"

The newly freed man nodded. "Yes. There's an emergency exit. Follow me."

He ran off towards the side of the room. Bobby and Rogue looked at each other for a moment, and then nodded. They can trust him. The X-Kids followed him into the darkness.

They could hear a loud explosion from behind them, causing them to run faster. Finally, they made it to . . . a dead end.

But then Ling's dad punched in a five digit code into a panel, revealing some sort of elevator.

"Get in!" He yelled urgently,his first sign of emotion.

They all scrambled in. The elevator shot upwards.

"Oh my god," Rogue whispered as a bright light emerged from underneath them. The fire shot up quickly, chasing after its prey. But then the fire was closed off by a steel barrier. They all breathed a sigh of relief. Rogue embraced Bobby and didn't let go until the elevator came to a stop.

When they stepped outside, they found a sunny, warm day. The science building was bustling with curious little kids, new inventions, and people oblivious to an explosion right beneath their feet.

"We'd better find the Professor. Whatever Magneto was after . . . it's long gone now." Bobby said.

After searching the entire building, they were able to find the adults. Needless to say, they weren't very happy to learn that the teens had gone off on their own.

"You could have been killed!" Scott scolded.

But the Professor noticed the new, silent man that stood next to Ling. "Who's this?"

Ling looked up at him. She hesitated before answering, "My dad."

"Why don't you meet us back at the jet?" Xavier suggested.

"O-okay." Ling stuttered. They all walked past them. John gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before giving her his trademark smirk.

There was an awkward silence.

"I'm glad you escaped." Her father said.

"Me too." She answered quietly. Then, letting her human emotions take over, she gave him a big hug. He seemed surprised at first, unsure what to do. Then, he put his arms around her and hugged her back.

* * *

"You do realize we just escaped another life-or-death situation?" Rogue commented.

"Yep." Bobby replied.

They were in the Blackbird. Once the teens got in, they immediately collapsed in the seats. Rouge squeezed Bobby's hand lovingly.

After explaining what happened down there, they were joined by Ling and her father. John smiled. He hadn't seen her so happy in a long time. At least she got some fragment of her family back. Unlike him. But it doesn't matter now. The X-Men were his family.

"It looks like Erik's plan has been foiled again." Xavier said with a smile.

"He'll probably try something again soon," Storm added.

"But by then, we'll be ready to take on anything he throws at us."

With that, the Blackbird took off and disappeared into the vast and beautiful sky.


End file.
